


Long Forgotten Gold

by squire



Series: Children of the Soulmark [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Banter, Blood, Canon Typical Violence, Dark Bilbo Baggins, Developing Relationship, Dragon spells, Dwarven Traditions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Epic, Happy Ending, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Khuzdul, Life-Affirming Sex, M/M, Misunderstandings, Non-Canonical Minor Character Death, Quest for Erebor AU, Ring madness, Romance, Timeline What Timeline, Unresolved Sexual Tension, courting, innuendos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 05:15:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 91,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4991584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squire/pseuds/squire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They thought, when they'd found love, they had everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. At the Trollshaws

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel to my story 'Ere Break of Day' which you should definitely read first, otherwise half the things in this one won't make any sense to you. 
> 
> All the thanks to Mildredandbobbin and Ariane DeVere for their steadfast endeavours to make this readable.

Bilbo Baggins wasn't strictly one for prudish propriety. He wouldn't have tried to court a Dwarven Prince in his youth if he was. (He wouldn't have tried to seduce said Prince in a public - albeit at the time quite empty - bathhouse if he had cared for propriety.) He wouldn't have fooled around in his teens with a blasted Brandybuck if he had given two hoots for propriety, for heaven's sake. But there was canoodling in the relative privacy of his family's vineyard and then there was... this.

"Confounded Dwarf!" Bilbo swore under his breath, all but flailing, startled by a pair of heavy hands closing on his shoulders. He tightened his grip on the armful of firewood he'd managed to collect so far. From under his feet came the snapping sound of a few twigs that had escaped his hold.

Damn him, Thorin had got considerably better at stealth over the years.

"May I remind you that your Company is right there," Bilbo said sternly, purposefully ignoring the shiver running down his spine at the deep, amused rumble reverberating through the broad chest pressed currently against his back. Behind a cluster of thicket he could see the light of the low fire, Dwarven silhouettes moving around in preparation of camp and dinner. For which they needed more wood, which Bilbo had volunteered to go and collect, which he would be quite done with by now if it were not for one rather importunate King.

Who didn't seem to understand that when the consequence of collecting wood was cooking dinner and the consequence of cooking dinner meant consuming said dinner, then in the eyes of a Hobbit it was a simple equation that didn't allow for Dwarven Kings and their clingy paws.

No matter how good they smelled. Probably better than the dinner ever would... nope, not going there. Bilbo forcibly opened his eyes, not remembering when he had closed them, jabbed a mean elbow into Thorin's abdomen and instantly regretted the action when its only result was a gush of warm breath on his ear, carried on a silent laugh. Confound the Dwarves and their thick layers. Bilbo tried not to shiver. He definitely didn't lean back into Thorin's strong embrace, not one bit.

"A kiss and I will let you go," Thorin murmured right into his ear, well aware of the effect every slight brush of his lips had on Bilbo. The light of the camp fire caught and flashed on the blue stone on his ring as he caressed the side of Bilbo's face, thumb dropping to trace idly the outline of his bottom lip.

"Now, who's the burglar," Bilbo complained, in a voice far too breathy for his liking, and resisted the urge to bite that thumb. He wasn't that hungry. Oh, but a few more moments of this sweet, smoke-scented, warm captivity, and he would be – and not exactly for food.

"One day, Thorin Oakenshield," Bilbo threatened, turning his head as best as he could to deliver his ransom and not lose all of his hard-won wood, "one day I will find _your_ weak spot, and then you can pray as you like, even your Mahal won't help you."

"I look forward to that day," Thorin whispered, when their lips parted, and - true to his word - he released Bilbo from his arms. Bilbo felt a vague pang of disappointment at the loss of warmth and then another, sharp this time, pang of a locust thorn digging into his palm. Oh, yes, the fire wood. For the fire. And something inconsequential like dinner. Bilbo suppressed a sigh and watched Thorin go on his way, apparently to check the surroundings of the camp for the best places to set traps and to keep watch.

This was the Dwarf he agreed to court. This was his soulmate. Bilbo gave himself a mental kick and hurried with the wood back to the fire. This was going to be a long journey.

 

*

 

"This one's name was William, if I recall correctly," Bilbo tapped on the moss-covered foot of a half-stooping petrified Troll that currently served as a nice seat for his saddle-sore bottom, "and he was by far the cleverest of them."

Across the fire, young Glóin lifted his battle-axe and cautiously knocked the blade on the cracked, ivied white hunk of a stone that was once Bert. Or Tom. Some details of that particular night that Bilbo remembered more than the others.

The majority of the Company didn't know the story of how Bilbo came by his little Elven sword, save for Thorin and the Fundinul brothers, who at least knew a little about where _Orcrist_ came from. The reminder of his first courting gift turned Bilbo's thoughts a little sour. He never particularly liked the Elvenking, not when he already saw an example of true Elven nobility in Lord Elrond, and learning of Thranduil's actions towards the Dwarves after the fall of Erebor did nothing to endear him to Bilbo any further. Who'd have thought that when it came to shiny objects, Elvenkings were no better than Trolls? Bilbo's fingers brushed fleetingly the outline of his little ring, tucked safely into his waistcoat pocket, and he briefly contemplated their route that was bound to lead them, sooner or later, through Mirkwood. Perhaps something could be done about that then…

But for now, Bilbo surveyed his audience, smiled to himself at the rapt eagerness in their faces, and puffing at his pipe, he began to weave the tale.

"It happened on our first journey to Erebor. We set a camp not far from here, on a place sheltered by the walls of a recently burned down farm, and Gandalf went to investigate what had happened to the farmer who had lived there."

"You were left alone in a place full of Trolls?" Óin cried out in outrage. Immediately, the focus of the group shifted onto Gandalf, who sat there, puffing away at his pipe and ostentatiously ignoring the glares of eleven angry Dwarves.

"Well, we hadn't known about the Trolls at the time," Bilbo pointed out placatingly.

"And a little, naturally stealthy Hobbit in the wilderness is in less danger than you would think, as long as he stays put, keeps quiet and to the shadows as I told him to," Gandalf raised an eyebrow, easily deflecting the blame from himself. Bilbo chuckled.

"Forgive the brashness of a young Hobbit to doubt the wisdom of Wizards," he gestured with his pipe in an exaggerated bow, "oh yes, I hadn't 'stayed put', and I went out on a little investigation of my own, and that's how I found myself trying to sneak up on three stone-trolls."

The Dwarves frowned at each other, obviously questioning why anyone would do something so foolish. Bilbo hastened to explain: "They caught Myrtle, my pony, and wanted to cook the poor thing. I tried to free her, it turned out that those brutes were quicker than you'd have thought, and before you can say 'property of Hugo Bracegirdle', I was dangling heels over head in the paws of a Troll."

Bilbo sniffed and shuddered. "The stink of them! It's been seventeen years of rain washing their stone-turned hides and I believe I can still smell it in the air here."

Nori stared at him. "You were about to be ripped into a pair of Quarterlings and you complain about the smell?"

"That wasn't very nice! I'm not a half of anything!" Bilbo puffed up at the same time as Dori administered his brother a sound clip round the ear.

"Hey!"

"Don't interrupt the story!"

"And who's that Hugo Facecurdle you mentioned earlier, Master Bilbo?" Ori pipped up, his pen and travel journal ever at the ready.

"Bracegirdle," Bilbo corrected, swallowing down his giggles and vowing to himself to introduce that particular soubriquet back to the Shire first thing after the Quest was completed, "it's a saying we have in the Shire for something happening as fast as good old Hugo appropriates other people's books. The poor chap likes to borrow books but returning them isn't exactly his forte. But back to the story."

Bilbo nodded to Nori graciously.

"Of course I was scared out of my wits, Master Nori. Especially when the one over there suggested that the best way to prepare me for eating would be to sit on me and squash me into jelly. But - I wasn't armed, you know, and even if I was, I wouldn't have known how to use a weapon. Look at me, and look at them - that's some serious mismatch in the muscle department. So I had to scramble my wits back together rather quickly, since it was the only way I could get one up on them. And believe me, the stink overall made it pretty hard to even think. No wonder they were so stupid."  

Bilbo pointed at the rust covered, overturned pot hidden under a cover of nettles near the half-buried rocks that once formed a fire ring.

"I convinced them that the best way to make a Hobbit palatable was to make him into a broth, very slowly, over a low fire. I figured that the dawn wasn't far away and that this huge pot of water would take a while to heat up to be truly uncomfortable. All I had to do was distract them from noticing the brightening of the sky, so I gave them some advice on what herbs go best with a Hobbit. Their knowledge on seasoning, by the way, was atrocious as well. We did the world some good by ridding it of them."

"Because slaughtering farmers and robbing travellers was nowhere near the crime of putting parsley into a Hobbit stew," Gandalf deadpanned.

"Broth!" Bilbo glared at the interruption, not at all happy for being pulled down from his high horse. "And you could have turned up sooner, you know."

"A Wizard arrives precisely when he wants to." Gandalf's eyes twinkled. "And from my vantage point it seemed that you were rather enjoying the herbal bath."

For the first time in the evening, Thorin joined the debate, but the low growl of his voice lacked all amusement. "You let Bilbo, the one you were supposed to guard and protect, needlessly stay in a perilous situation?"

"No need to get upset now, Thorin Oakenshield!" Gandalf lifted his hand. "Though I admit going away to investigate and leaving Bilbo alone wasn't perhaps my brightest chaperoning moment. But as to the Troll incident, I wouldn't call the few extra moments of dread needless. Sometimes you have to let a Hobbit literally stew in his own juice to teach him that when a Wizard says 'stay put', he means it. "

"Gandalf actually killed the Trolls, you know, when he split that rock over there in two so that the first light of sun fell upon the trolls and turned them to stone," Bilbo said quickly to soothe the Dwarf's temper - and quite ruined all the dramatic build-up of his story, if you asked him.

The Dwarves didn't mind, though.

"And then you went to rob the robbers!" Bofur cheered.

"The Trolls had a cave nearby," Bilbo nodded, patting the hilt of his little sword, "and I'd say we made a good use of the spoils. Though apart from nearly cutting off my own foot at Erebor's training grounds, my blade hadn't seen much fighting yet."

"That's going to change sooner than later," Dwalin grumbled and his eyes gleamed. "If you're still as hopeless as you've been, I reckon a lesson in swordfight every night before dinner wouldn't go amiss."

"A lesson, you say!" Bilbo protested, slightly alarmed by the silent nod of approval Thorin exchanged with Dwalin. "I'd call it a good trashing. We Hobbits really aren't made for wielding swords."

"Those who have no swords can still die upon them," Thorin put in with an air of finality. Then he smirked.

"As a leader to whom you've pledged your service, burglar, I will see to it that you will be trained with a sword."

When the only response from Bilbo was the folding of his arms upon his chest and a glare, Thorin added in a softer voice:

"And as your suitor, it would disburden my heart greatly if I knew that you were able to fend for yourself."

Bilbo snorted. "I have means of my own protection the likes of which you've never seen, thank you very much." But he didn't protest any further. Sometimes you had to pick your battles.

 

*

 

"You only did that so you'd get to watch me hopping around like a fool," Bilbo reproached later, sitting down next to Thorin on a fallen tree trunk just under the crest of a small hillock overlooking the land. The moon was painting silver over the whitewashed stone backs of the once-bandits and casting cool shadows over the snoring Company. Thorin did not tear his eyes off surveying the line of horizon, where dark woods breathed out rolling clouds of mist like soft pillows for the sleepily blinking stars, but he threw an arm around the Hobbit's shoulders and snuggled him closer to his side.

"Getting to watch you is an added benefit, aye," he said, "but I would not call the sight foolish."

Bilbo hummed, aware that the roll of his eyes would go unnoticed in the semi-darkness, and burrowed deeper under the welcoming warmth of the furred coat.

"I saw you fight once," Thorin continued in a low voice. "Back in Erebor. Only for a little while, but I didn't see anything deserving mockery. I saw a surprisingly limber, quick–" Bilbo felt a big hand travel higher on his shoulder, "–clever, fierce–" warm fingers skated over the skin above his collar and brushed through his curls, sending shivers down Bilbo's spine that had nothing to do with the crispy cold of night air, "–quite the formidable little warrior–"

"And now you're just teasing me." Bilbo batted away the sneaky hand as vehemently as he could while trying to stay as snuggled up to Thorin - and his warm coat - as possible.

"I'm not a warrior. Definitely not a little warrior. I'm not even a burglar." Another smack on the unrepentantly light-fingered hand. "Don't you have a watch to keep?"

Thorin laughed, the sound of it rich and velvety like the star-dotted darkness stretching above, and obeyed, resting his hand back around his shoulders, a warm and welcome weight. Bilbo hummed contentedly and tipped his head back, trying to resist the pull of sleep by counting the stars above his head.

After a good half an hour of comfortable silence, interrupted only by the occasional hoots of a barn owl somewhere in a distance, Bilbo noticed Thorin sneaking glances at him every once in awhile.

"What is it?" Bilbo yawned.

"When I heard your tale tonight..." Thorin began tentatively and paused, obviously rethinking his words. Bilbo watched as his jaw clenched in something akin to frustration and then Thorin lifted his chin, pronouncing resolutely:

"Your lack of the sense of self-preservation amazed me. I mean my order. You need to be able to fight."

Bilbo smiled to himself. Belated protectiveness. Oh dear.

"It's all right, Thorin. I know how foolish I had been. I actually listen to Gandalf most of the time - but don't tell him that, he'd let it go to his head. I was young, right? At thirty-three, one gets into all kind of trouble–"

Bilbo stopped his speech when he felt Thorin beside him stiffen.

"What's wrong?"

Thorin shook his head minutely and pulled Bilbo closer to him. "In my mind I know that Hobbits age differently but still my heart grows uneasy at the thought that you were barely more than a child by Dwarven reckoning when we first met... at thirty-three, a Dwarf lad would be still in training, not allowed to march into battle, let alone... to court."

Thorin swallowed and from the persisting tenseness of his shoulders Bilbo knew that the explanation was by far not a whole one.

"Is this about what happened in the bathhouse again?"

Thorin kept his eyes on the misted horizon and Bilbo sighed.

"I already told you, Thorin, you needn't be ashamed of that. I was an adult all right, I seduced you, and I enjoyed it just as much as you did. Well, perhaps not the running away part," Bilbo conceded, "but that had nothing to do with my age, I think. Or with my consent."

Thorin still appeared unconvinced.

"The way I behaved– that couldn't have been enjoyable for you."

Bilbo shrugged. "I'm a Hobbit. We do like a good mouthful."

Even in the wan light of the moon Bilbo could observe darker colour spreading over Thorin's cheeks and suddenly he didn't feel sleepy any more.

"As it is, I wouldn't be adverse to a midnight snack." In one swift move, Bilbo slipped down from the log and shifted to kneel in the open vee of Thorin's thighs. Looking up, he grinned at the satisfactorily shocked expression on the Dwarf's face.

"I do have a watch to keep," Thorin reminded him, echoing Bilbo's previous words.

"By all means, watch away," Bilbo bade him nonchalantly, fingers handling the knots on the laces of Thorin's trousers with a deftness belying his insistence that he wasn't a burglar.

Thorin drew a deep breath. "My Company is right there," he insisted, and Bilbo could have laughed at how the tables had turned.

"Then I suggest you keep quiet," Bilbo grinned, undeterred. Then, all at once, he found himself being pulled up and his surprised squeak swallowed in a deep kiss.

"I don't want to keep quiet when I am with you," Thorin whispered when he released him and Bilbo gulped when he heard the heat behind the words. That was a promise worth waiting for.

"All right." He fixed Thorin's trousers back in order and sat back on the log, a picture of pure innocence. "After all, you are the leader of this Company, you surely have some standards to uphold and examples to set. Even though your noble efforts on that particular front seem to be sorely wasted."

Thorin pulled back a bit with a confused frown. "What do you mean?"

"Just, if you want the camp really guarded, don't put Bofur and Nori on the same watch, is all." And with a last wicked grin, Bilbo sauntered off to his bedroll and burrowed under his blanket so neatly that only the top of his curls peeked out.

 

*

 

They’d been on the road for several weeks already, the Wandering Wizard, eleven Dwarves and Bilbo the Dwarf-friend, and with every passing night Bilbo woke in the morning a little bit surer that this was an exceptionally bad idea.

It wasn't the adventuring in itself, no. Bilbo was enough his mother's son to be able to cope with the less pleasant sides of it, those that never made it into the stories: that no matter how enchanting the new stars above his head at night, they weren’t enough to make him forget the impertinent pebbles under his bedroll. A morning dew on grass could be as beautiful as a string of pearls on the spider’s thread but it still made you wet and cold when you had to wade through it. But Bilbo didn’t really mind that - that was what being a Took meant, after all. People always called the Tooks ‘adventurous’ and thought them perhaps moonstruck, daydreaming, overall a bit wild. Whereas in reality, Tooks were the most practical ones. Bilbo’s father, a Baggins through and through, would spend hours in his armchair, reading, dreaming, and writing wonderful bedtime stories about dragons and fairies, magical amulets and ice-tipped swords, while Belladonna would shake her head with a fond smile and add a waterproof-sealed box of tinder to her travel pack because, you know, morning dew.

So it wasn’t the road that bothered Bilbo. Neither the Dwarves. After the initial shock at Bag End, where the mood of the Company turned from joy at seeing him to loathing the very sight of him, and then back to the first so quickly that their thick Dwarven heads still reeled with it a week later, they mostly embraced him to heart and accepted him as one of their own. It was easier with those who knew him already from his time in Erebor - Bofur, Bombur, Nori and Ori - but soon enough Bilbo found a way to endear himself to Dori (never underestimate manners, his father used to tell him and he was right), gradually learned not to be so wary around Bifur (by equal parts afraid of him and afraid of accidentally hurting him), and worked hard on breaking the ice around the Gróinul brothers, Óin and Glóin. The two, at first, treated him with a sort of benevolent disdain and, of course, with the begrudging acknowledgement of him as someone who was being courted by their King, but even their formal respect warmed into something friendlier over time. As for Balin and Dwalin, of whose father, Fundin, Bilbo held a good few fond memories, they welcomed him with a confusing mixture of brotherly affection and not-so-thinly veiled threats in case he should ever break Thorin’s heart.

Which was, frankly, the root of Bilbo’s current problem.

With a belated understanding he remembered what Gandalf told him all those years ago, the day he first read his Soulmark for him: that Dwarves, once they find the other half of themselves, they love them in full. 

Thorin certainly did his best back in his youth to resist this predestination but somehow, he fell in love with Bilbo nonetheless. Only, and that was what truly troubled Bilbo, the Hobbit wasn't exactly present when it happened. There was no denying their mutual attraction while Bilbo was in Erebor, an instant connection facilitated by the fact that they were each other's soulmate, but love? That feeling of longing when apart, of wholeness when together, lust tempered by tenderness, and the sharp simpleness of the 'I want you' of infatuation softened and expanded into the 'I want you to be happy' of true love? That was what apparently took root in Thorin during his time in exile, that was what Thorin brought with him into Bag End, already full-bloomed like that iron rose, and Bilbo couldn't help but regret that he wasn't there to watch it being forged. 

Bilbo didn't doubt the depth of Thorin's feelings, no. Dwarves weren't exactly subtle creatures, and now when Thorin allowed himself to love, he loved with absolute commitment, no holds barred save for one - a sense of guilt for his past wrongs towards Bilbo. Which, in turn, irritated Bilbo to no end, as he insisted that their past misunderstandings were a joint fault of them both. 

It was mostly a tiny but persistent doubt that it was merely some dream, a memory, an ideal projection that Thorin fell in love with, and not Bilbo. What had Thorin truly seen of the young Hobbit during that misshapen courting of theirs? Bilbo in Erebor was trying very hard to impress. Faced with a completely different culture, he was more outspoken and courageous than he would be at home, in the Shire, where the conventions would keep him firmly grounded. He consciously stamped upon his natural restraint towards strangers, not wanting to come across as too snobbish, and so he drank with Dwarves and sang bawdy songs that would normally make his ears go red. There obviously was no way his fighting skills could impress anyone, but still he managed to be remembered as light of foot, keen of eye and sharp of wits. And the reputation of cleverness and wisdom his courting gifts gave him - well, it wasn't too hard to be seen as wise when he had a Wizard behind his back. 

Bilbo feared what would happen if Thorin looked past the impression of him and see him for who he truly was: a Hobbit too used to the comforts of home, with his blood running cold upon hearing Wargs howling in the distance, and altogether completely unworthy of the love of a King. 

Bilbo's own feelings - well, that was another matter. He made the decision to follow Thorin on this quest, and now he knew he would follow him through dragon fire and into the next Age if need be. He just wasn't sure that it would ever be enough. He was just a Hobbit, after all. Small creatures weren't meant for great deeds. They could get hurt easily, and they had to protect themselves. And when it was love that could hurt them… well. Thorin gave him his heart: Bilbo would do anything to protect it even if he wasn’t sure that his own true heart would ever be accepted in return.   

And so they journeyed on, every day a bit closer to the Dragon-ridden mountain, every evening dotted with Thorin's sweet tokens of desire and Bilbo cautiously deflecting them as teasing, every morning dawning with a stronger taste of insecurity on Bilbo's tongue. So when the quiet of one fine morning exploded in the foul growls of Warg scouts, Bilbo was almost glad for the interruption.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been kindly pointed out to me that I had handled all the 'accents' thing in this fic exceptionally poorly. In my defence, English is only my fourth language and as an effectively half-deaf person I honestly can't hear any difference between any dialects of English - which is no excuse, of course. Thus I decided to keep this 'verse accent-free - let's just say that all the Dwarves speak good Westron since they grew up in the Mountain and spend only a little time in Ered Luin.


	2. Fords of Bruinen

A throwing dagger slashed through the air inches from Bilbo's ear and embedded itself in the roof of the toothy maw that'd been about to close around his neck just a moment earlier. Bilbo's hand shot out of its own volition and he watched, mind frozen in shock, as his fingers wrapped themselves around the handle of the dagger, plucked it out before the Warg could collapse on it and bury it in the ground, and sliced the blade through the throat of the Warg's rider just as the Orc was toppling down from its saddle, all that in one swift movement.

He was still staring at the ugly, stinking, unmoving, _dead_ heap in front of him when a sound punch to his back woke him from the dazzled stupor.

"Not bad!" Nori grinned at him, teeth shining from a face half covered in black blood. "Keep it for now!"

Bilbo's mouth imitated the expression and he found himself grinning back. Something warm dripped down from his chin. _Oh my_ , he thought. _There must be blood all over my face now._

Then Nori jumped away and Bilbo took a wild look around. _What are you doing here?_ he scolded himself. _Keep to the Dwarves, they're your only chance to escape this alive!_

There was Thorin, drawing his sword from the ribcage of another Orc and crushing its face under his boot for good measure. He was yelling something in Khuzdul, curses or orders, and Bilbo forced his feet to move, to follow him to safety.

Something huge came at him from his right side, a loud fleshy thump of a large body on the ground followed by a groan in a familiar voice. Bilbo slipped and fell, arms thrown forwards to protect his face even as he thought, a singular outraged and ridiculous protest, _Hobbit feet do not trip!_ But then his hands, sliding through the grass, encountered something hard and rounded, his fingers closed on the worn leather wrapped around the handle of a battle axe and Bilbo rolled over onto his back, lifted the axe with all his might and rammed it somehow right into the hind legs of the Warg trying to get up next to him. The beast roared and jerked its head at him, jaws snapping, when another axe swished through the air from the other side and the Warg crashed on the ground mid-snap.

"Bugger," Glóin harrumphed as he crawled from under the beast, "threw me off, this one."

Bilbo scrambled back to his feet and handed the axe, one of a pair, back to Glóin. The Dwarf scowl-grinned at him and huffed: "Don't tell Óin."

"Not a word," Bilbo breathed out, still unsure how he managed even to lift the heavy axe.    

Then young Ori barrelled into him from the other side, turned on his heel, let loose a rock from his slingshot and grabbed Bilbo by the elbow, dragging him along. Bilbo gulped a breath down into his burning lungs and ran.

They were camped in a little hollow at the edge of the woods, sheltered from the wind and sight from the open planes, when the attack came. Now Wargs poured over the edge of the grassy slope, driving them towards the tree line, and there were contorted shapes moving under the trees, glints of jagged blades, yells and screeches in some foul language Bilbo didn't understand. They had been ambushed.

"Move!" Thorin shouted at the same time as Gandalf's voice thundered: "Follow me!"

Bilbo ducked under the swing of Dwalin's warhammer and ran, trying not to listen to the crunching sounds of a mashed Warg skull behind him. He blocked out the growling, the screeching and the gurgling, and concentrated on running.

All too soon he was forced to stop. They tried to escape along the tree line, to slip out before they'd be outflanked from both sides but the Orcs were too many. Bilbo got winded when he all but flattened himself against someone's - Bombur's - back at the sudden halt and then he yelped when Dwalin grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him roughly behind himself, deeper into the tight knot of Dwarves bristling with swords and axes on all sides, surrounded by a swarm of leering faces and shrilling taunts.

Bilbo looked up to Thorin. His brow was dark and ferocious and he spared Bilbo one glance burning with such furious regret that Bilbo felt it like a stab deep into his guts. Thorin’s lips parted on a word  - but then he bit it back and clenched his jaw instead, snapping his attention back to their foes. With a harsh cry, he brought down his long Dwarven sword on one Orc that tried to get a strike with his short jagged cleaver and got too close for his own good.  His place in the circle was immediately taken up by another and the lot of them yelled and rattled their weapons but weren’t advancing yet - as if they were waiting for something. Or for someone.

Next to him, Gandalf was muttering something to the end of his staff, his Elven blade drawn and glowing with lightning blue. His face was grim and Bilbo's heart sank.  

It was then that he heard it. A voice in the back of his head, one he hadn't heard in over seventeen years.

_What are you waiting for? These Dwarves can't protect us._

Bilbo gripped the handle of his own little sword tighter and it was as if the Elven spell on it, the cold blue flame, could somehow pour strength and courage into his failing heart. Even the nagging voice grew fainter but still it wouldn't die out.

_They'll tear you down and apart. They’ll drag you off with them, for sport, and they'll take us. Yes, they'll take us._

With a start, Bilbo realised that his free hand was buried in his pocket and clasped around his invisibility ring. He didn't remember reaching for it.  

But before his thoughts could quite get to the crossroads between temptation and disgust, the tallest and loudest of the Orcs suddenly stilled and fell to the ground in a heap of misshapen limbs. From the back of his head protruded the end of an arrow, the pure white feathers still quivering in the sudden silence.

Then all the noise came back full force. Orcs scattered with high-pitched screams, trying to dodge the hissing rain of white arrows, Dwarves rallied forth with roaring battle cries, and Bilbo, more feeling  with his toes in the dirt than hearing with his stunned ears, noticed the overwhelming thunder of hooves coming on them around the edge of the woods.

The formation of roughly three dozen riders spread as they came closer, bowmen on the flanks and spearmen in the middle, fast and deadly like lightning, and Bilbo watched with wonder how the light of the early day glinted on their helmets and on the silver brooches shaped like pointed stars on their grey cloaks.

"The Rangers!" he exclaimed with joy at the same time when Gandalf boomed, the relief in his voice unmistakable: "The Dúnedain of the North!"

Around them, the spears and arrows of the Rangers  made short work of the last few Orcs scrambling for the woods to flee. Thorin passed by, putting his hand shortly on Bilbo's shoulder for a gentle squeeze and giving him a fleeting smile. He turned away before Bilbo could muster the weariest of smiles in return and joined Gandalf. One of the riders halted their horse in front of the Wizard and the King and slid down from the saddle, pulling off their helmet to reveal a sweep of dark long hair and a face as fair as the morning sun.   

"Hail, Mithrandir, and hail to you, Thorin Oakenshield," the Woman said. "I am Gilraen of the House of Elrond. Strange is the company you keep on such a fine morning!"

"Well, we haven't kept it for long, and for that you have our thanks," Gandalf laughed. Thorin kept quiet and though Bilbo couldn't see his face, he could _feel_ him glower.

"We have hunted this drove of scum since last night. Our scouts tell us that yet more are to come. These lands are no longer safe. You better make haste to the Hidden Valley."

"Our ponies bolted when the attack came!" Dori exclaimed and Bilbo swore under his breath because he knew what the next proposition would be, oh, and he didn't like it one bit.

"Halbarad!" the Woman called. One of the riders turned in his saddle and reined in his horse to listen. "Gather thirteen of those riding the strongest steeds, they have to carry our guests to the Fords of Bruinen."

Several Dwarves cried out in outrage, protesting one over another, and Bilbo couldn't help but giggle when he saw Glóin planting his legs firmly in the dirt as if daring anyone to pick him up.

"The rest of us will keep the Wargs back," Gilraen continued, "but you better ride fast, and don't turn back. It's been a long time since Orcs last dared to roam that far into Eriador in such a number."

"I wonder what attracted them," the young Ranger named Halbarad remarked, leading his horse to halt right in front of Thorin.

"You heard our chieftain," he said with a smirk and extended a hand to him. The scowl on the Dwarf's face could eclipse the sun but after a moment he grabbed the hand and heaved himself up to sit behind the rider, one arm thrown around the Man's waist and the other firm on the hilt of _Deathless_. The rest of the Company shut up remarkably quickly and didn't protest even as they needed help to mount the horses. Bilbo watched the spectacle with a definitely inappropriate grin and didn't even notice the swift thud of hooves behind him until he was plucked off the ground by the collar of his jacket and deposited none too gently onto a huge horse, frighteningly high from the good and solid earth.  He grabbed the tuft of horse mane in front of him with a desperation only a small folk riding a big steed could muster.

A slender arm sneaked around his waist, securing him in place, and Bilbo realised there was no pommel or any other part of a saddle to dig into the small of his back. Which meant that this Ranger rode bareback, which meant that he most likely was...

"Well met, Master Baggins," the Ranger leaned over Bilbo's shoulder to meet his glance, face plate of his helmet pulled back, and Bilbo recognised the sparkling grey eyes and bright smile of Elrond's son.

"Oh, my pleasure, El..." Bilbo trailed off, suddenly unsure and greatly embarrassed. But honestly, he hadn’t seen anyone from Rivendell in seventeen years, and no one could ever tell the twins apart! Bilbo doubted even their own father could.

"Elrohir, at your service," the Elf laughed. "Elladan's been saddled up with our Grey Wizard."

"That was a quick bet you won," Bilbo muttered and Elrohir's amused smirk only confirmed his suspicion. Of course the twins would wager for the honour of not carrying the Wizard. Gandalf was as tall as the riders, and even from the slight distance Bilbo could hear the constant stream of questions as Gandalf interrogated the poor Elf.

Howls of Wargs approaching from the distance brought an abrupt end to their short respite.

“Hold on tight, my friend,” Elrohir whispered and to his horse, he called: “Noro lim!”

 

*

 

They rode as fast as their greater weight could allow, the speed of it whipping air into Bilbo's face and robbing him of his breath. Elrohir's horse was best off among the others, the addition of a small and mostly weaponless Hobbit hardly a burden to the strong blue roan, but Elrohir kept them in line, respecting Halbarad's leadership.

Bilbo couldn't hear any sounds of pursuit behind them over the thudding of hooves and wind whizzing in his ears, and he wouldn't turn to look back even if he could. They cut their way through the thin cover of woods and crossed open planes without slowing down, bound in the straightest line for the dark line of trees skirting the gully of Bruinen, the Loudwater. Only when they slowed down to a trot, the horses stepping carefully to find sure footing on the steep pebbly slope, Bilbo dared to peek his head from under Elrohir's arm.

The river at the fords was shallow at this time of year, the spring floods fed by the thawing snow long gone. Bilbo reckoned the water wouldn't have come up higher than to his waist should he attempt to wade it and he doubted the Wargs could be discouraged by such a small obstacle.  

"Do not worry, little Shireling," Elrohir laughed. "This is our home ground. Our spells have sunk deeply into the earth around the Hidden Valley and the water will rise to our word if need be. You shall be safe here."

A pair of Elven archers emerged from the trees on the other side where Bilbo would have sworn nobody had been just a moment before. Gandalf dismounted from Elladan's horse and rushed to meet them. Thorin jumped down as well before Halbarad could offer him a helping hand and joined in the discussion, the Westron words in his gruff voice rising above the melodious stream of Sindarin spoken by the guards.

"What do they say?" the Dwarves complained aloud, one after another getting down from the horses and checking that they hadn't lost any weapons to the merciless speed of the ride. "Why can't they speak like a decent folk speaks?"

"They are decent folk, Master Glóin," Gandalf called over his shoulder, "and that is why they're offering you food."

"Marvellous! Lead on!" Bilbo exclaimed readily, partly because his stomach truly missed breakfast and his nerves, frayed by the dangerous dash, could use some sustenance, and partly because he wanted to prevent the Dwarves from the realisation that Elven hosts speaking Elven tongue would probably serve him Elven food. Which was all right by Bilbo's standards but for the Dwarves... well. The more left for me, Bilbo said to himself reasonably and followed the Elves into the woods.

The path up the gully and further between the hills kept taking sharp turns amongst even sharper rocks and the woods growing alongside it were downright confusing. Bilbo doubted that he would be able to find his way without a guide, and he was a Hobbit! It was as if the land itself conspired to keep any unwanted visitors well away from Rivendell.

Iron-tipped Dwarven boots came into Bilbo's field of vision as he walked, head low in thoughts, and Bilbo looked up to find Thorin falling into step next to him and offering him a face marginally less dark than the one he’d been  wearing ever since he realised where they were going to spend the night. Bilbo was aware of the Dwarven general distrust of Elves, as well  Thorin's particular dislike of them, but honestly there was no way they could carry on the Quest without supplies. They could trust Gilraen's company of Rangers to pick up whatever remained in their abandoned morning camp but most of their food had been already packed and strapped to the ponies when the attack came, and with the ponies having bolted, Bilbo doubted he'd ever see the rest of his favourite Bree biscuits again. 

"Well," he sighed. "Looks like our quest won't be ending before it properly began, after all."

Thorin's eyebrows crept higher at the rueful tone and then he huffed out a short laugh when he realised that it was meant as a joke. Bilbo chuckled in return, his mind carefully sidestepping the entire morning. He wasn't prepared to deal with all the _We're alive but we were that close to not being_ right now. He would prefer to break down in the vicinity of a nice soft chair and a lot of strong wine.

"You fought well," Thorin offered. Well. There went Bilbo's resolve not to think about those horrible moments of fright and rush and _blood_.

"Everyone else did," Bilbo said wearily. "I just... did my best to stay out of everyone's way."

"Don't sell yourself short, laddie," Glóin grumbled from where he was stomping up the path behind them. "I shan't forget how quickly you dived for my lost axe, and that strike was clever too. Not from above, where the beast's hide is thick and hard as stone, but from below, right across the sinews. You're wasted with that sword, if you ask me."

"You lost one of your axes during that fight?" Óin cried out from further down the path and Glóin rolled his eyes.

"I didn't dive for it," Bilbo protested. "I tripped, and my hands just landed on it. It was pure chance! I could barely heft it, let alone aim it anywhere - that Warg just happened to be there, too!"

Ahead of them, Bifur turned around, hooked his elbow in his cousin Bofur's arm and began talking in Khuzdul and gesticulating rapidly in Iglishmêk while continuing to walk backwards. 

"He says that's what happens to everyone," Bofur commented in the moments Bifur spared to draw breath. "That your brain just notices things without you, right? Reflexes and training, it sorta overrides thinkin'. You knew there was that axe, and you knew what to do with it, and didn't you tell us fair times that you Hobbits don't ever trip?"

"We Hobbits don't ever encounter Wargs, that might be it," Bilbo said testily. He couldn't stand being made into some berserk fighter - he'd had a few rounds of training, nothing more. Even though it was tempting, to appear praiseworthy in Dwarven eyes, to have Thorin look at him with awe. But in the long run it would only strengthen Thorin's misconception of Bilbo and the inevitable fallout would be all the worse for it.

"I'm not a warrior," he stressed for the ump-teenth time on that blasted Quest.

"Then I say that Smaug can kiss his scales goodbye when you become one," Bofur winked and laughed, jogging a few steps ahead to avoid Bilbo's kick and dragging Bifur away with him.

"First kill is never easy," Thorin said unexpectedly when Bilbo thought that all the talk about fighting was finally over and by all that's green and good, didn't he almost trip over his never-tripping feet right then and there.

"Oh for–!" Bilbo exploded and then nearly bit his tongue off in his haste to shut up when he remembered how young in Dwarven reckoning Thorin still was, and what his first kill had probably been like. Some random Orc in that endless carnage of Azanulbizar that Balin had been telling him about one evening, and Thorin didn't have the luxury of freaking out and crashing down afterwards because more Orcs were coming, first kill becoming a mere one of many, and the day was filled with death until its bitter end.

"I'm all right, Thorin," he said instead, reaching for the Dwarf's hand. "And if I'm not, I will be."

Thorin held his hand in his large, warm palm and then he nodded.

"I'm certain you will, especially after a bath," he said agreeably and smirked, letting go of Bilbo's hand and heading further back through their line to check on Dori and his brothers. Bilbo stared after him uncomprehendingly for a while and then, as he twitched his nose in annoyance, he suddenly noticed the pull of dried Orc blood on the skin of his face. Oh dear.

 

*

 

Lord Elrond welcomed them in the first courtyard under the marble arches twined with colourful woodbine, silver fountains singing in the lavender-scented air all around them, but Bilbo couldn't find it in him to truly appreciate the scenery. He kept to the back of the Dwarves who once again packed themselves into a tight cluster and limited himself to a courteous bow when the Elvenlord's gaze passed over him, attentive and amused and welcoming all at once.

They were given rooms, basins of hot water, and a notice that dinner was to be served in one of the arboured pavilions. It was when Bilbo could finally run his fingers through his hair without hissing with disgust when Thorin appeared in the doorway of Bilbo's room, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest.

"I thought I would have to drag you away from the Elves as soon as we came here, with the way you waxed poetic about Rivendell on every possible occasion during the journey."

Thorin looked much too pleased with what he apparently perceived as a sign of loyalty to the Dwarves on Bilbo's part. Gleeful, even, with the impression that Bilbo did not prefer the wonders of Imladris to the company of his new friends. Bilbo shook his head at him and went behind the screen standing next to the bed where a set of clean clothes was laid out for him. A soft flowing tunic, probably child size, and a pair of trousers that even folded three times were still too long on him. Well, it'd have to do before his clothes came back from the laundry.

"I still might do that, running off with the Elves for a day or two," Bilbo called out, pulling the tunic over his head. "As soon as I– _hmmmpfff!_ "

Bilbo's head emerged from the tunic thankfully through the right opening but his arms had missed the armholes entirely, leaving him tangled and completely helpless against the assault of big hands around his waist and warm mouth on the back of his neck.

"What can I do to convince you against that decision?" Thorin grumbled and laughed shortly at the way Bilbo was squirming in his arms, fighting at once the tunic and the Dwarf's fingers, curious around the waistband of his trousers.

"I'm sure you can come up with something," Bilbo got out, proud of how his voice didn't break on a single word, and then he added with adamant resolution: "After dinner."

Thorin must have caught on something unusual in Bilbo's tone because he released him quickly and without any more ado, helped him, even, to straighten that blasted tunic. Bilbo realised that his demand for food before anything else, though declared with his usual Hobbitish single-mindedness, was also uttered with a complete lack of anticipation or joy at the prospect.

"Are you quite well?" Thorin asked seriously. He ran a gentle finger through the still wet curls above Bilbo's temple. "You understand that you are free to go as you please during our stay here, Master Burglar. I would not keep you from your friends."

Oh, but that must have hurt getting through Thorin's teeth, Bilbo thought to himself wonderingly, and his heart fluttered with affection for the Dwarf who had grown so much since they first met. He caught the hand tangled in his curls and planted a light kiss to the inside of the wrist.

"I don't know what's wrong with me, Thorin," he admitted. "I feel a bit unwell, now when all the rush and excitement is over and all that remains is just plain disgust. I'm afraid I'll never like fighting. Or maybe it's the Valley and the protective spells cast over it..."

"Does the Elven magic hurt you?" Thorin sounded gravely serious, shoulders tensing as if he wanted to storm out and order everyone to pack the next second, and Bilbo put a finger over his mouth to shush him.

"No, nothing hurts me. This is a land of healing, of recuperation and rest, full of comforts of home - and we Hobbits are exceedingly fond of those. But I guess I just never really noticed how it all feels just so..." Bilbo frowned, unable to find the right words. Thorin waited.

Bilbo thought on the times he stayed in Rivendell. The first time he came here with Gandalf on their first journey to Erebor. He was giddy with the new adventure, amazed by everything Elven, delighted to meet his mother's old friends. The second time was on their return journey from Erebor. That time, Bilbo had been bitter with disappointment at how his adventure turned out, not quite heartbroken but only just, and he longed just to be in the Shire already.

This time, ever since they entered the protected lands, without the distraction of either high or already crushed hopes, Bilbo felt…

"Oppressed,"  he finally found the right word. "The very air here tastes to me as if the whole Valley was under a glass bell. It's beautiful and fragrant and sunny and mild, but it's not... open, you know?"

Thorin was regarding him serenely and Bilbo felt instantly better and less like a fool, for there was no ridicule in Thorin's face at Bilbo's nonsensical rambling. Maybe it was the spells woven into the  earth, water, and trees around the Valley, after all. They surely had to be amplified because of the Warg packs raiding Eriador, and Bilbo, as a Hobbit, and so tightly bound to earth, could feel it.

That, or Bilbo had a heretofore unknown problem with enclosed spaces (because Imladris, though large, was still surrounded by sheer precipices on all sides) and in that case, Bilbo didn't know how ever he was going to be able to live inside a mountain.

 

*

 

Thorin did not share Bilbo's anxiousness, but then, Dwarves were known to be particularly resistant to magic. There were many better reasons not to like Rivendell: the architecture tended to be too open to the elements, there was too much greenery on too many places (including the dinner plates) and it was choke-full of Elves.

Thorin reminded himself once again why they were here. They needed supplies, rest, and Elrond's counsel. Though the last seemed to Thorin less and less worth suffering the constant disapproving looks the Elvenlord was giving him. Elrond did not know the secret nature of their quest - yet - but he definitely suspected something. Damn the Elves and their gift of foresight.

"Thorin Oakenshield!" The Ranger Woman from earlier slid into the seat at his right. "It's good to see you've come into your own."

Thorin touched the Durin beads, polished to a perfect shine, and inclined his head in a sincere bow. He remembered her name. Gilraen, the one who bought out his beads from the greedy hands of a Hobbit wisewoman.

Thorin regarded her carefully. Gilraen was tall, as tall as some of the Elves, and her hair was yet untouched by age, her dark locks still rich and now bound together with a tressure set with small gems in its network, like stars in a lace. But her face bore lines at odds with the youthful gracefulness of her movements, and her grey eyes were inscrutable as a pool of still water, deceptively quiet and the more dangerous because of its unknown depth. Bilbo called Rivendell a place of healing: but this Woman looked as if she suffered a wound beyond the healing powers of the Elves.

"You have my thanks," he said to her. "This heirloom means much to me. I cannot ever repay you the gift of your wisdom and generosity  but at least I would have you accept a consideration for the gold it cost you to save them."

Gilraen only smiled. "Do not mention it, Master Oakenshield. Think it a token of goodwill between my people and yours."

"Excuse me, my lady," Ori stammered out from his place across the table. He had red splotches of embarrassment high on his cheeks but his eyes burned with determination, pursuing knowledge like a greyhound dashing after a promising scent. "The Rangers called you their chieftain."

Her smile only grew wider, and her teeth flashed in amusement. "Oh! Do the Dwarves not allow their womenfolk to be in charge of men?"

"We do," Thorin answered her. "My sister Dís rules in Ered Luin in my stead, and had she been born the eldest, the burden of leadership after the Battle of Azanulbizar would have fallen on her shoulders."

"It's only that Men... well." Ori hastened to explain. "When we were passing through Rohan on our journey to the West, we've seen that their people do not allow their womenfolk to ride into battle."

"The Rohirrim are mostly horsemen," Gilraen said thoughtfully. "I can see how they would rather keep their women to the hearth as extensive riding is not good for the body of a bearer. Yes, Master Dwarf, war may be the province of men, but when they perish, it falls to the women to take up their swords to protect the children. What about Hobbits, Master Baggins?" she addressed Bilbo further down the table. "Do your women fight and rule?"

"I think, my lady, that they would, if they would bother to," Bilbo answered with no small amount of cheek. "But it's true that not even Hobbit men give much thought to fighting and ruling. We have no King, the elected Mayor's duties are mostly presiding at parties, and though our history books maintain that we sent five hundred archers to the aid of the last King of Arnor in the battle with the Witchking of Angmar, it's not been recorded in the accounts of any other nation."

Gilraen lifted up her goblet for a sip. Thorin noticed that apart from her tressure she wasn't wearing many jewels; just a thin band of gold around the fourth finger on her left hand.

"My husband was the Chieftain of the Dúnedain. I am acting as a regent until our son is of age. He is six now." She nodded slightly towards the end of the hall where sat a company of youth, Elrond's sons, some Elven children and in their midst a little boy, quiet and grave for someone so small, with a head of light curls tinged with gold as the children of Men usually had at this age, and with his mother's grey eyes.

"I'm sorry for your loss," mumbled Ori and tried to burrow back into his seat in an obvious resolve not to ask any more upsetting questions.

"It's been four years," Gilraen tried to soothe him. "My father warned me of this fate. He foresaw that my intended was going to have a short life. But short or long, those years I had with him are precious to me."

"That was very brave of you, my lady," Balin said gently from her other side.

"It wasn't a hard decision at all," she smiled again and lifted her goblet for a refill. The hem of her long sleeve slid down her arm and Thorin caught a brief sight of the last few letters of a name, written on the skin of her left wrist. From the light amusement in her eyes he knew that she knew and that she showed him that on purpose.

"We can't always protect those we love," she said, eyes on Thorin, and then she looked briefly over him to Bilbo sitting at his left and currently chatting the ears off poor Halbarad. Thorin suppressed a shiver. The aftertaste of the fear of this morning still lingered at the back of his throat, turning even Elrond's best wine sour. Bilbo could have died this morning, and Thorin could not protect him.

"I couldn't help but notice, when Master Baggins was reaching for that bowl of apples, that he's marked with your name."

"He is my soulmate, aye," he said quietly.

Gilraen was holding his gaze and he wondered how much she'd inherited of her father's foresight.

"It is very brave of you taking him on your quest," she echoed Balin's words. Thorin turned his head to Bilbo again to hide from her the shadow of shame in his eyes. Gilraen had wed her soulmate despite knowing that their happiness was doomed, and Thorin had spent years rejecting his own soulmate out of sheer cowardice.

"It is brave of him," he replied.

Then the heavy sense of foreboding left him in an instant when, further down the table, Bofur decided that he'd been polite for too long, jumped onto the table, produced a merry trill on his flute, jumped down on the other side and landed right in front of a bemused Elf maid, bowing to the ground and bursting into song:

 

_My fair lady, hear me please_

_You have such beautiful knees_

 

The rest of the song was thankfully interrupted by a chorus of "Bofur!!", hollered simultaneously by Balin, Óin, and Dori. Beside Thorin, Bilbo buried his face in his hands.

"I regret ever teaching him that one..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song mentioned towards the end is in fact first two lines of a popular Czech naughty song - these first two lines are fairly innocent but it’s the last two that are a real killer: 
> 
>  
> 
> _My fair lady, hear me please_  
>  You have such beautiful knees  
> If you open them for me  
> We could soon be family
> 
>  
> 
> I swear I am not making up these songs. I am merely translating them.
> 
> //
> 
> For readers interested in history: the thing Gilraen is wearing at dinner, the tressure, is a ceremonial headgarb worn in medieval times, sort of a net or a lace binding the hair at the back of your head. It's a reference to her name, because Gilraen in Sindarin means "enlaced in stars". Nowadays, the word shifted meaning and it's used only in heraldry, to describe a narrow border near the edge of a shield, usually doubled and ornamented with fleur-de-lis. Still a pretty thing.


	3. In the Moonlight

_"Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin's Day will shine upon the keyhole."_

 

Bilbo mulled over the words in his head as he walked, a few steps behind Thorin, away from the moonlit waterfall where Elrond had read the moon runes on Thorin's map for them. Gandalf had disappeared somewhere, probably to go on discussing the rift in opinions between him and Elrond as they'd already started during the meeting, and Balin went ahead to check that the Company wasn't getting themselves into any trouble.

The night was chilly but not overly so and Bilbo was content to walk in just the clothes the Elves gave him. The air was cool as silk and the sky above a canopy of heavy brocade embroidered with diamonds, and some of the dull pain that'd been gathering behind Bilbo's brows dissipated as he walked, breathing in the calmness. The Valley was far from still: fragments of songs carried on the night breeze from one of the Elven houses, lanterns could be seen moving in the woods, their soft golden light flickering amongst the trees like a lure of the fairies. Bilbo would have liked to slow down and admire the view, to fill his nose and lungs and head with jasmine scent and moonlight and simply _not worry_ for a while, but Thorin was striding ahead relentlessly, gruffness oozing from every pore, and Bilbo couldn't find it in him to blame him.

 Honestly, Elrond could have been nicer about it all.

 It was equal parts his old friendship with the Half-elven lord, his gratitude for the rescue and offered help and his unimpeachable Baggins manners that prevented him from lashing out at Elrond with a few sharp words. How dare he scoff at such a noble endeavour as retaking the home of a whole nation? What did he know about homelessness, the Master of the Last Homely House East of the Sea? Lord Elrond had spent the last couple of millennia sitting on his posh, silk-clad arse in Rivendell and staring into books of lore, apparently calling it 'guarding Middle-Earth'. Bilbo huffed in aggravation.

 He would never tell Thorin but he was beginning to see where the Dwarf’s disdain of Elves was coming from. It probably came with the immortality, he suspected, this self-righteous disregard of anything lesser than 'the bigger picture'. Bilbo could understand that living only to see everything die could make one wary of becoming attached to mortal things - but that didn't mean that the immortals should deem the lives of mortals any less important. Elrond could draw back into his safe valley and simply outlive Smaug, just wait for the dragon problem to solve itself; Thorin and the Dwarves could not. Perhaps that was what made them the heroes in Bilbo's eyes: they had to take action to gain the same prize that had come to the Elves just by time and inaction. When your candle was short, pondered Bilbo, you’d better make sure it burned brightly.  

 "You are particularly comely when you are angry."

 Bilbo blinked and lifted his eyes to find that Thorin had stopped at a landing overlooking the valley below. But the serene beauty of the night apparently held no interest for him because his back was turned against the ornate railing and his eyes, free of gloom for once, were focused on Bilbo with an intent sparkling darkly like the heart of a sapphire.

 Bilbo swallowed, his words about 'after dinner' coming back to him with a rush that made him forget the chilliness of the night in an instant. Apparently Thorin could not wait to get to their rooms. Well, Bilbo thought, there was nothing wrong with a little bit of warming up on their way there - surely the Elves here had lived long enough to have seen a kiss or two before!

 "I fear I cannot return that compliment," he said softly, stepping into the waiting embrace, "because you are a much better sight when you're smiling."

 With the delicious warmth of a living Dwarven furnace pressed against him from chest to toe,  Bilbo ran an appreciative hand through Thorin's hair, the silver there glittering in the moonlight. He allowed himself an utterly Hobbitish thought of how very complimentary would be a sprig of jasmine in that dark sweep of hair, how sweet it would be walking under this very moon up the Hill to Bag End after a good evening in the Green Dragon, stealing kisses on the way–

 Abruptly, Bilbo found himself spun around and pressed against the railing, the banisters cold under his shoulder blades and a shocking counterpoint to the hot mouth on the skin of his neck. Oh dear, Bilbo thought, a bit dazedly. This wasn't just stealing a few sweet kisses. Well, he tried to reason, even as his rational thought processes unravelled just like the laces on the front of his tunic, the Elves had probably seen a smooch or two as well. It helped that the rasp of Thorin's beard on Bilbo's collarbone was nothing short of wonderful and that his big hands were bracketing his hips, fingers spreading and gripping tight–

 "Ooomphhf! No need to toss me around like a sack of–" Bilbo squeaked, suddenly granted an entirely new perspective as he was hoisted up onto the railing.

 "I was tired of leaning down," Thorin growled and buried his face in Bilbo's stomach, inhaling deeply like someone who just fell face first onto his favourite pillow after a long, hard day.

 Bilbo wriggled his bottom on the railing, tried to find a hold with his toes between the balusters and gave it up in favour of wrapping his legs around Thorin's ribs. He really should stop calling himself respectable, he thought, because no respectable Hobbit would consider dangling precariously above a deep chasm with nothing but a strong hand round his waist to keep him safe and find it arousing. He grabbed two handfuls of hair for good measure and complained:

 "I can't even reach to kiss you like this. Why does everything here have to be so ridiculously oversized?"

 Thorin grinned up to him. "I find your position just right, Master Burglar. I am a King, after all, and I do not fancy myself on my knees." And with his free hand, he pushed the front of Bilbo's tunic up and began to unlace his trousers.

 "Thorin!" Bilbo hissed, the vestiges of his propriety fighting a losing battle against the overwhelming want. "The Elves will hear us!"

 "The Elves can go–"

 "Language, O King!"

 "I was going to say," Thorin lifted Bilbo to pull his trousers down, just enough that his prize was free, and wasted no time in claiming it into a tight grip, "that the Elves can go _hug a tree._ "

 Bilbo's breath left him for a moment and when it came back, he looked down at Thorin with half-lidded eyes.

 Truly, Bilbo's new position was indeed very convenient. All Thorin had to do was to duck his head just a little and stick out his tongue to deliver a broad lick up his shaft that had him seeing stars that rivalled those above his head.

 Bilbo tried to push his hips forward, only to realise that the range of his movements on the banister was practically non-existent and that he was completely at Thorin's mercy like this. And from the smirk Thorin gave him, he knew that too.

"You are actually more insulting when you keep to polite words," Bilbo scrambled for a diversion, and after all, it was a trait a Hobbit could approve of. "Is that something you learn as royalty?"

"You use far too many words for the occasion, Master Hobbit," Thorin admonished him, abandoning the straining flesh in favour of a gentle bite to the inside of Bilbo's thigh.

"Oh, words can be useful, Master Dwarf," Bilbo panted, still too stubborn to lose an argument, "I once had to riddle to save my life..."

"...that I had no idea Thorin Oakenshield would be a part of."

 Bilbo froze. The voice belonged unmistakably to their host and could be heard approaching on the path leading just under the landing where they had stopped.

Bilbo pried Thorin's shock-frozen mouth off himself and hopped down the railing. His arousal was already fading, dying a quick and unremarkable death and leaving behind frustration settling deep in his guts like a leaden weight. Every jolt of his rushed movements reminded him of the pleasure staying just out of reach with a sharp stab of discomfort, but he ignored it and kept his back to where the voice came from, attempting to straighten his clothes as well as he could in his haste. This was beyond mortifying. This was unimaginably horrible. Bilbo could barely believe that Elrond had it in him, interrupting a private (yes, in a public place but still very much private) moment and even being sarcastic about it, finishing Bilbo’s sentences for him. _This_ was the fabled grace of Elves?

"Of course Thorin is a part of it," said another voice, Gandalf's this time, to add  insult to injury. Of course the old badger would find their predicament highly amusing. Bilbo closed his eyes and wished himself far, far away. Of all the times he could dearly use invisibility... But his little ring was safely tucked inside the travel pack in Bilbo's room. Bilbo contemplated just running away, manners be damned, when Thorin wordlessly tightened his arms around him, holding him in place.

Confused, Bilbo looked up at him, and then followed his gaze down onto the path. The Elvenlord and the Wizard walked quickly, with an obvious purpose to their haste, and they were talking and gesturing animatedly at each other with a complete disregard of their surroundings.

"Erebor is Thorin's birthright. Why are you so set against him and his quest to retake it?" Gandalf asked, an undertone of defiance in his voice, a clear reaction to the irate expression on Lord Elrond's face.  

Bilbo nearly choked with relief. When Elrond said he had no idea of Thorin being part of it, the ‘it’ he meant was the quest, not Bilbo’s life. Elrond and Gandalf were discussing the odds of retaking Erebor, probably rehashing the argument already started by the waterfall.

Bilbo moved to slip away, not wanting to eavesdrop on a private conversation, but Thorin stood rigid and unmoving, rooted to the spot, and something apprehensive in his eyes made Bilbo stay by his side. He huddled closer to the Dwarf; partly for warmth, and partly for a ready excuse in case should they be spotted. They had only stopped there for a kiss, right?

"Have you forgotten?" Elrond rounded on Gandalf, halting them both on the path. "A strain of madness runs deep in that family. His grandfather lost his mind, and you tell me his father too succumbed to madness in his last hours."

Bilbo more felt than heard the sound Thorin stifled into his hair, something between a gasp and a sob, and he tightened his arms around him in an instinctive attempt to soothe him. The Dwarf could very well be cut out of granite right now, his fingers digging into Bilbo's arms and his eyes anxious and so full of pain that Bilbo couldn't stand looking at them. He closed his eyes, laid his head on Thorin's heaving chest, and listened on.

"Yes, Thráin was beyond reason when I found him in Dol Guldur’s dungeons," Gandalf agreed reluctantly, "but I cannot be sure about the root of his madness. He kept talking about a ring that had been taken from him, raving about it all the time, about 'the Last of the Seven'. You know the lore on the Dwarven rings as well as I do, Elrond. Two were taken back by the Enemy, four were consumed by dragons. Is it so impossible to presume that the last one was still in the possession of the line of Durin?"

"Dwarves care for nothing but their gold, even without a Ring of Power," Elrond said darkly.

"Yes, but there is a difference between love and greed," Gandalf argued. "Dwarves were made to love their craft and the fruit of their labour, just as a writer loves his book - or a bard loves his song. Such love does not wish to merely keep, but to bring joy and beauty to the world. It were the Rings of Power the Enemy gave them that tainted their passion with possessiveness, and even then they wouldn’t bend to the Enemy’s will - their obsession does not reside in power but only in treasure. Before Sauron, gold held no dominion over Dwarves." 

"And you believe that it was this Ring that caused Thrór's downfall?" Elrond asked, scepticism clear in his tone. 

"Thrór cared for nothing but multiplying his treasure in his later years, and one of the Seven could grant him precisely that," Gandalf said. "And you know how immensely attracted dragons are to the Rings. It could be more than just the legend of Erebor's wealth that lured Smaug to the Mountain." 

Elrond still didn't appear to be convinced. "And you are ready to swear on this feeble conjecture that Thorin will not also fall under the spell of gold?" 

Gandalf spread his arms in exasperation. "Even if it was a gold madness and not the enthrallment of the Ring, I still would have faith in Thorin. Have you not noticed that he has found his soulmate? A Dwarf can only truly love one thing, I don't believe gold will have any power over him now." 

Elrond resumed his fast stride and Gandalf struggled to keep up. "I have seen their bond," Elrond tossed over his shoulder. "It is a young thing, still trembling, and one that should not be tested in dragon fire." 

Bilbo swallowed against a lump in his throat. Every single insecurity about the rightfulness of his place at Thorin’s side rose to the surface of his mind with a painful clarity. He was just a Hobbit. The fate of an entire kingdom should not, could not lie on the strength of his crooked little heart! 

Gandalf and Elrond rounded a corner and disappeared from sight, the last of the Elf's warning floating up to them before the words grew undistinguishable in the distance: 

"The White Council has been summoned for tonight. Something stirs in the fabric of this world, something that should have not been awoken. I tell you, Mithrandir: I already feel something festering amongst the Dwarves. I intend to investigate more closely..." 

Bilbo opened his eyes and let his arms slide down Thorin's shoulders, the night closing on them, darker and heavier than before. The headache from earlier that day, almost dispelled under the night's chill and pleasantness of their walk, came back full force and was now pounding on Bilbo's temples from the inside. Rivendell no longer looked enchanting. Now it only looked glum. 

"They will try to stop us," he whispered, the sudden certainty of the thought surprising him. 

Thorin forcibly unclenched his jaw and nodded, a single, abrupt jerk of his head. "We need to pack and leave the valley immediately." 

Bilbo spared a glance at the railing and suppressed a sigh, their previous heated moment all but forgotten now. They had to be quick and leave under the cover of night before they would become 'guests' for an indefinite period of time. Guests that would be well-cared for, hosted in one of the most beautiful places on Arda, but ultimately nothing more than prisoners - and the White Council would pick their minds and lay bare their hearts. Bilbo shuddered. 

"Shouldn't we tell Gandalf?" he asked carefully. Thorin shook his head just as decidedly, his brow darkening as his eyes once more wandered over the path where Gandalf and Elrond had talked. 

"The Wizard is not to be trusted. We are nothing but pawns in his games." 

"He seemed to take our side–" Bilbo tried to object but was cut off when Thorin grabbed his hand, lifting it up to reveal the Mark, and hissed: 

"Have you not heard him? Do you still think he had brought us together for your good, or mine? He sees you as his safeguard so I would not fall into madness, and me as his tool to dispose of the dragon and once again redraw the map of powers in Middle-Earth!" 

Bilbo raised his chin. "And what of it? Will you forsake the quest just to spite Gandalf?" 

Thorin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he seemed calmer, but also sadder than ever. 

“My father was lost to us ever since Azanulbizar,” he began, eyes fixed on the valley behind Bilbo and at the same time so much farther away. “When Gandalf found me in Bree, I was still searching for him. Gandalf gave me my father’s map and key and told me that he had met him long ago but that no one had heard of him for years.” 

Bilbo sucked in a sharp breath. “He didn’t tell you.” 

“That my father was already dead?” Thorin laughed, an ugly, bitter sound. “Left to go mad, starve and rot in Dol Guldur? No, he did not deem it important to tell me.” 

Bilbo would have yelled at the wizard if he’d had him at hand right then and there. Earning Thorin’s trust was hard, like transcribing a beautiful and complicated script, you could work at it for weeks and then one careless penstroke and everything was spoiled beyond salvation. 

“But as to your question," Thorin continued, "I would claim my home, with or without the Wizard. But I regret bringing you on–" 

"Stop it," Bilbo pleaded, voice low and plaintive. This was what he feared all along. That Thorin would one day decide that Bilbo wasn’t enough. 

"Do you still doubt us?” he asked, turning his hand in Thorin’s grasp and wrapping his own fingers over Thorin’s Mark, the flowery cursive of _Bilbo Baggins_ still as clear there as on the first day they met. The unspoken ‘Do you doubt me?’ hung in the air between them. 

Thorin released his hand, still holding himself rigid and tall and so very, very distant. He smiled, though, and it was a pitiful, self-deprecating thing, a mere ghost of those rare smiles Bilbo had  grown so fond of, and he already hated whatever was about to come out of Thorin's mouth. 

"You would willingly go with someone doomed to fall prey to a sickness of the mind?" 

Bilbo stopped himself from gaping just in time. Thorin doubted _himself_. Oh dear Mahal, he thought, from what rock had you carved your children that they were so spectacularly dense? 

Bilbo laid both his palms over Thorin's heart. "I'm not afraid of you, Thorin," he said. "I believe Elrond, despite all his wisdom, is wrong, and Gandalf, though a fool in a pointy hat, could be right - but mostly I believe all this predestination is superstitious drivel. You are strong in your core, Thorin, and should there be a sickness or a spell or a curse, we will face it, and we will defeat it." 

Thorin looked at him so blankly for a moment that Bilbo was afraid that he’d overstepped some line he didn't know about, but then the Dwarf's face slowly broke into a smile, a true one, gentle and perfect like a flower that opens its petals only once a year. The rest of Bilbo's reassurances died in his throat and his breath hitched. Thorin had been so young when his cruel fate befell him, saddled with the responsibility for his people, with no one to guide him, no one to assure him when he failed, no one to praise him when he did well. He was unused to compliments, so little aware of his own worth, so ready to doubt why anyone would have faith in him. 

“That old fool in a pointy hat was right on one account,” Thorin said at last, voice rough and wet like years and years of swallowed tears. “I have found my soulmate, and I don’t think I could ever hold anything more precious to me than him.” 

Bilbo shook his head, out of a habit to deflect any affection so open and direct that it could throw off the defences he still held around his own heart, and leaned on his toes to give Thorin a quick kiss. 

“Glad that’s settled,” he said, clearing his throat and fiddling with one of Thorin’s braid for a moment. “But now we have a Company to rouse, and to do so quietly - which seems to contradict itself but we have to manage somehow.”

He nudged Thorin in the direction of their rooms, casting wary looks around as they went. Hadn’t Elrond mentioned the White Council had been summoned for tonight? Wielders of great magic had been on that Council, the wise Saruman and the powerful Galadriel. How safe was his little ring before them? Bilbo doubted that a mere invisibility ring could interest them, but all the same, he couldn’t shake off a growing feeling of distress. Saruman was renowned as a collector of magical items, wasn’t he?

Well, Bilbo thought to himself as he struggled to walk as inconspicuously as possible, and not to break into run just to be in his room already, Saruman and anyone else could outright forget about having Bilbo’s little trinket. Bilbo had found it, Bilbo had won it in a fair game of riddles, so it was Bilbo’s. No one else’s. His.  

 

*

 

On a balcony, surrounded by the gentle gurgle of falling water and framed by the violet and lilac tones of pre-dawn sky, Galadriel stood overlooking the valley with a frown on her beautiful face.

 _They are leaving_ , she said in Gandalf's mind. The jolt of surprise she got in response was genuine and she frowned even more.

_Are they? Why?_

_I do not know_ , she said, letting Saruman's droning flow through her head, and concentrating on the scraps of thoughts and feelings already fading into the trees surrounding Rivendell.

_I can feel their footsteps like beats of doom_ , she said. _Something evil is leaving the Valley with them._

There was a veil her gaze could not pierce. It troubled her.

_ Mithrandir, what have you done? _

  
  



	4. In the Caves

"They didn't!" Dwalin nearly stepped off the narrow cliff path in his incredulity.

"Oi! Watch out there!" Bilbo cried out. The mountain path really wasn't a good place to start looking over your shoulder when walking. "And they did indeed," he added once he was sure that Dwalin wasn't about to trip down the ravine.

"They wouldn't," interjected Balin in very much the same tone as his brother.

"They would, and they most certainly did." Bilbo grinned and hooked his thumbs behind the straps of his pack for emphasis. Not as good a trick for virtually puffing one's chest as the thumbs-behind-braces thing but they were very close to the Misty Mountains now and Bilbo wasn't ready to unbutton his jacket just to add some effect to his words.

A hairpin bend in the path saw both Fundinul brothers walking face to face with Bilbo, only considerably higher up on the slope, and the Company's burglar was treated to the twin sight of matching baffled scowls.

"Did those tree-hugging weed-eaters really sing a song about _us_?" Dwalin asked for maybe the third time.

"I distinctly remember a line about 'beards a-wagging' that rhymed with 'Balin and Dwalin'," Bilbo confirmed, face serious but eyes dancing with glee.

"Told you to put a decent braid in it," Dori shouted, proudly caressing his own design.

Bilbo refused to be sidetracked by talk of beard-grooming. "You see, the Elvenfolk of Rivendell aren’t always floating around against a backdrop of falling leaves, looking as if they swallowed a whole lemon and now have trouble getting it out the other end."  Several Dwarves in earshot snorted in agreement with the description.

"There's a lot of youth in the Valley, especially the twins, and the young of the Rangers, too," the Hobbit explained. "Always in for a prank. You wouldn't believe the things I lived through on my first stay there."

"Brats were lucky I didn't hear them," Dwalin huffed. "Or I'd have introduced them to the business end of my axe before their song was through."

"Not all of them were that bad," Bofur tried to amend. "Them Rangers, as you call them, who saved our sorry arses from the Wargs, those were nice. One of them offered me a ride on his horse after that feast. Had to tell him once was 'nuff for me... Oi, lad, you all right?"

Bilbo managed to swallow the spit he was choking on, took a couple of wheezy breaths and finally stammered out: "Quite all right, thank you, Bofur. Well, it's well known that the Rangers are extremely fond of their _horses_."

Not a single one of the Dwarves managed to pick up on the way he stressed the last word. Bilbo bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing and carried on in his best innocent tone:

"Why, I believe I still remember the song young Halbarad taught me when I was last staying there. He was but twenty at the time, a scamp through and through. Let me just... oh yes. It went like this." And Bilbo launched into a merry tune:

 

_Said a stripling to a maid: Let's meet by the brook_

_I raised me a fine foal, come and take a look_

_As it proudly stands_

_Nosing for your hands_

_Mouth of satin, mane black as a rook._

_Said the maiden: You should put a bridle on your colt_

_I fear if I touched it, quickly it would bolt_

_by hook or by crook_

_I won't take a look_

_'til you keep it in a better hold._

 

It was a simple tune, easy to pick up, and by the end of the first stanza, several of the Dwarves were humming along with the second.

"A fine song, foals can be easily spook'd," Bofur nodded slowly, a bit baffled as to why Bilbo would sing a song about colts when the talk was about those terrible long-legged full-grown beasts they'd been carried on the other morning. All the others seemed to be mulling over the same as a strange silence fell over the group, and then Bombur (of all people, _Bombur_? Bilbo thought to himself) started shaking in an uncontrollable fit of giggles.

"You got it, then?" Bilbo grinned widely at his friend.

"Yeah, I did, but - not from my own experience, mind you!" Bombur flapped his hand as if dispelling any assumptions Bilbo could be making about him.

"What?" Bofur said. "What are you laughing at?"

Then, to Bilbo's increasing delight, Bifur started cackling in his beard as well, accompanied by rapid gestures interspersed with Khuzdul.

"What?" Nori asked this time, looking about as discomfited as his flap-hatted sweetheart. "What has the fact that Bombur was a ladies' man before Beinta put a leash on him to do with his getting the joke? I don't get it!"

"That's because all your metaphors are about jewels or weapons," Bilbo rolled his eyes. "'Polishing battleaxes', remember?"

Bofur's raven eyebrows were very stark against his suddenly pale face. "No... You're sayin' the colt in that song was... and the horse that Ranger offered me..."

Bifur nodded frantically and made a gesture that would be undoubtedly recognised in every culture across Middle-Earth.

Bilbo was glad that his feet were sturdy enough that he didn't have to look out for the small rocks on the path because right now he barely saw a thing through his tears of laughter.

"You'd practically thrown yourself at that one maid at dinner, can't blame that young man for wanting to take advantage of your... open-mindedness!"

"He offered you a ride around his bedroom!" Nori squealed with gleeful delight. He was going to deny it later but Bilbo was positive that the normally sly-voiced Dwarf had squealed like a faunt that saw his first fireworks.

Bofur looked as if he wanted to grab his hat by the flaps and pull it down over his eyes. The others had possibly the laugh of their life - apart from Bombur, Bilbo noticed, who had sobered unexpectedly quickly at the mention of his wife.

Bofur scrunched his mouth and even now, his cheery mood proved unbeatable. With a smirk and twinkle to his eye he muttered:

"So that explains that lad's snickerin' when I told him I much prefer my old little pony..." at this point, Nori stopped laughing and went a bit purple, as Bofur continued, "... even though you’ve got to pet him for ages to get him to move!" And Bofur dodged the kick and jogged ahead the path.

Nori ran after him, yelling: "You scoundrel! Now my reputation west of the Mountains is ruined!"

Bilbo left them to their banter, wiped the tears of mirth from his face, and quickened his pace to walk alongside Bombur. Oh gosh, Bilbo cringed internally. How do you ask someone if his wife is still alive or not? In the end, he settled for a neutral statement.

"You must miss your wife."

Bombur looked glad. "Ah, you remember my beautiful missus, don't you. I miss her all the time. She'd be a right asset to this quest, as skilled with her axe as she's with her ladle, but she had to stay with the little 'uns."

"Oh," Bilbo nodded, his heart lifting again. Some of that relief must have found its way onto his face because Bombur smiled at him, equal parts fond and sad.

"The kitchens were close to the gates, to cut short provision delivery, so she made it out safely when Smaug came... but her parents and her little brother didn't. That's why I had to go... A wanted to see her true smile again."

 

Bilbo hung his head low and concentrated on the ground beneath his feet to hide his face. There were times, an odd moment here and there, when he would forget about the goal at the end of their journey. Erebor was grand and daunting and wrapped in enough myth to feel half unreal, and Bilbo would pretend there was nothing to their quest than having a jolly good time on the road with Dwarves and their daily silliness and companionship. It was the opposite to not seeing the wood for the trees, as his mother would say. Bilbo was sometimes only too happy to forget about the ominous shadow of the Lonely Mountain waiting for them beneath the horizon in favour of stringing a tale or knocking together a song to put a smile on the faces of his friends. He would rather complain about cram for breakfast, lunch and supper, not to mention the lack of cram for now non-existent second breakfast, elevenses and afternoon tea, than to allow room in his head for thoughts on how crunchy a snack a Hobbit would make for a Dragon. Sometimes, Bilbo would make himself forget that the Dwarves have never forgotten.

But heaven's, didn't it feel good to leave Rivendell behind. Granted, they had to continue on foot, and their provision wasn't as plentiful as it could have been if they parted with the Valley on good terms, but all that seemed minor peeves when Bilbo could finally breathe again.

 

*

 

They went off the road for the first two days, crossing country and staying under what cover the low and sparse woods could offer. The vegetation gradually turned stunted and weather-beaten as they climbed the first foothills of the Misty Mountains, the terrain rougher and earth colder. After two days, being as sure as they could be that no search party of Elven riders had come from Rivendell to bring them back, Thorin ordered them back onto the Great Eastern Road.

"We haven't met anyone on the Road for almost a day," Dori said around his pipe one evening, making it sound like a bad thing.

"I'd call that a good thing. I for one don't fancy myself a second round with those Warg-riding buggers," Óin remarked, his attention on the low camp fire. He poked a couple of twigs further away from the embers before they could build a fire big and bright enough to make them an easy target in the dark. Thorin noticed that the soot blackened stones forming the fire ring had seen previous fires, as this was one of the few sheltered places by the road and must have been visited often by travelling merchants, messengers and hunting parties, but that no fire had been lit here for weeks, if not longer.

"I'm not talking about what's behind us." Dori scratched his chin between the elaborate braids of his beard. "The High Pass has been safe for years now, ever since we wiped out most of the mountain orcs at Azanulbizar. And it's the height of summer, the finest weather for travelling. Merchants should be taking the pass, coming to meet us on the road. Don't you remember how often they would come all the way to Ered Luin in summer? It's odd to be so alone here, is all I'm saying."

"Seems the road's no longer safe." Óin nodded sadly.

"The road is not safe," Glóin declared loudly from behind a large tree where he was currently passing water.

"That's what I was saying, are you going deaf?"

"Not sooner than you, first-born brother," Glóin replied without missing a beat. "And that's what the sign on this tree is saying, if the trappers around here use the same marks as those around Ered Luin, which I believe they do."

Glóin stepped out from behind the tree holding a piece of bark that'd been once cut out of the tree trunk and then nailed back, creating a handy little message board hidden from elements and eyes that didn't know what they should be looking for. On the reverse side, on the light coloured bast, a coded message stood out in black ink - a bit faded by time but still legible, if you knew the signs.

"That's the first time something good came out of your hanging about with those backwoods primitives," Óin muttered.

"You weren't badmouthing my hunting experience when you had venison for dinner last week," Glóin groused.  

"What does it say?" Thorin asked, ignoring the budding sibling quarrel before it could grow into a fight over some fifty years old childhood feud.

The message was short and to the point.

"Stone giants have taken up residence in the higher pass."

Thorin swore under his breath. It was the one of the two passes in the area they were heading for. "The lower pass will be crawling with Goblins," he said, thinking aloud.

"Oh, about that..." Bilbo lifted his head from where he sat grooming his feet but Thorin carried on. Now was not the time for Bilbo's delicate nerves - it would only provoke Dwalin or Nori to taunt him with morbid stories about Goblin raids and throatcutters.

"The detour for the River Gladden pass further south would delay us for days. We need to put the Mountains between us and the Wargs, quickly."

"If I may..." Bilbo tried again. Thorin made a mental note to soothe his fears later but now they needed a plan.

"Can't we just sneak our way past them? I've read that the giants aren't particularly attentive to anything that's smaller than a mountain, and they should be sleeping most of the time anyway," Ori offered, showing his courage.

Balin shook his head at him. "You think we could just - what? Tiptoe our way across with the possibility that we'd be trampling upon the very giant we're trying to evade? You should start praying that they'd not be ticklish."

"They're made of rock!" Ori defended his idea. "Nothing short of thunderstorm–"

A great jagged bolt of lightning split the sky above their heads in two and the rest of Ori's statement was washed away from his lips with the first fat drops of rain. When Thorin's ears recovered enough from the crack of thunder he thought he could hear a strange echo coming from the mountains: a distant rolling rumble with sharper crashing sounds of something that sounded like rock being thrown against more rock. He knew that sound intimately; the crack and thunder of crumbling rock, shattered by an explosion of black powder: the sounds of deep mining. Only there weren't any Dwarves mining in the Misty Mountains. This was the sound of giants having fun.

"Second half of the summer, and we're in the mountains," Balin deadpanned.

"There'll be a storm brewing every sodding day," Dwalin added his bit of salt.

"I still think we have better chance slipping past mindless moving rock than past hundreds of bloodthirsty Goblins!" Ori retorted. Thorin had to admire the lad's spirit.

"What about moving our packs over there under that tree before everything gets soaked through," Bilbo interrupted them in a manner far more calm that Thorin would have expected of him when Goblins and stone giants were discussed. The Hobbit had been more than a little jittery when they heard wolves howling in the distance the first week! He looked at Bilbo properly. Their burglar was already dragging a third pack - Ori's, he noticed - under the thick canopy of leaves where they would be protected from the worst of rain. Instantly, the arguing group who had hardly noticed before that their hair was getting wet, jumped into action. The pot of hot rabbit stew was moved to safety before the rain could water it down into an unpleasantly cold soup, and the thickening downpour soon turned the last embers of their camp fire into a sodden slush.

"You were saying something," Thorin remembered when everyone was seated in a closely packed circle and mulling over their travelling prospects with a bowl of stew in their hands.

"Oooh, you noticed!" Bilbo cheered, too cordially for it to bode well for anyone at the receiving end of this kind of goodwill. Several members of the Company snorted and Thorin treated them with a glare before turning back to Bilbo with an expectant look.

"Well, I was just thinking, since none of you have actually crossed Misty Mountains before, while I've done so twice already, you might be interested in what I can say on the matter." Finishing that, Bilbo bent his head back to his bowl and continued spooning his stew in a leisure manner as if he was sitting in the cosiest inn room in Bree.

"I see." Thorin capitulated before his inevitable defeat would cost him more. "Master Burglar, would you grant us the honour of your counsel as to how to get us safely over the mountains?" An ordinary Dwarf would have caved and scrambled into hiding at the ominous tone but Bilbo didn't miss the twinkle in his eye, and neither did his Company.

"Mahal save me from their flirting," Balin muttered into his beard.

Bilbo, mercifully, didn't milk this opportunity any further. He sat aside his now empty bowl and replied:

"Over the mountains, I fear that I cannot. _Under_ them, that's another matter."

  


*

 

"This rock is bad," Bofur all but whined from his place in the line of Dwarves stumbling in the dark tunnel. "Bad rock, dead rock, utterly deaf and mute. Nothin' to mine here. It gives me shivers."

"I have no stone sense and it makes my skin crawl too," Bilbo agreed. He was leading the group, feeling the way with both hands and feet since they didn't want to risk even the tiniest bit of light before they'd be deep enough from where this tunnel opened into the lower pass wall.

After much explaining and even more discussion, Thorin agreed to follow Bilbo's plan on taking a trip through the cave system Bilbo accidentally discovered on his first journey to Erebor, and investigated a bit closer with Gandalf on the return journey to the Shire. It was two days march, more, if they wanted to keep quiet, and the confined space inside this barren and hostile rock was getting on everyone's nerves.

"And you're absolutely sure the Goblins don't know about this tunnel," Dwalin grumbled. His twin axes kept getting caught against the low ceiling with a loud clanking and Bilbo had already told him off twice for the noise.

"Oh, they probably know about it very well," Bilbo said with a toothy grin, gleaming even in the dank, smelly semi-darkness of the passage. "They just never dare to go this deep."

"And we do," Bombur sighed.

"Don't worry," Bilbo assured them for what must have been the hundredth time. "The second time I went through here the creature was nowhere to be found. Probably got spooked when I disturbed its hiding place and moved elsewhere. Gandalf was a bit cross about it, he wanted to catch it and have a better look at it, for what wizardry reason I don't dare to guess."

Bilbo interrupted his tale with a loud sniff. In front of him, the air was getting colder and moister. The first of the underground lakes must be nearby. A subterranean river once clawed a complicated system of caves out of the rock before it diminished into a series of disjoined, stale, smelly ponds. He could already see the dim half-light of the first cave, the ever-moving reflection of light coming through some undiscovered vent on the ripples forming in circles on the water surface under the falling drops.

"Careful now," he warned the others. "Don't step into the water. The fish here are blind and taste something awful, but there are also leeches as big as my fist."

Bilbo left the group for a moment to go ahead and scout the cave on his light-treading feet. As he predicted, it was empty.

 

He wasn't entirely truthful earlier when he retold his story to the Dwarves and something about this secret sat ill in his stomach now. But it wasn't as if he was lying, was it? Just not telling everything. As far as the Company was concerned, Bilbo and Gandalf had fallen through a Goblin trap in a cave they were resting in when they took the higher pass on their first journey, Gandalf managed to free them from the Goblins by slaying their King and in the ensuing chaos Bilbo had been knocked down a shaft and took a rough tumble all the way down into a cave. There he encountered a strange sharp-toothed creature accustomed to living in the dark, riddled with it for a way out, won the game and escaped into the light of day before the creature could eat him.

Bilbo thought he knew why Gandalf had so insisted on entering those tunnels again when they travelled back. The Wizard must have suspected that there was something Bilbo was keeping from him, something he simply wasn't mentioning, and the old meddler decided the best way to obtain the truth would be to tap from the source. Alas for him, when they returned here, there was no hide nor hair to be seen of Gollum, and Bilbo was fine with that. The spurned suitor of the Prince Under the Mountain and his good-for-nothing chaperone settled for seeking out the other end of the tunnel, pleased with the discovery that it opened very close to the Western end of the lower pass, and that was that.

Only the Dwarven sense of time flowing under stone told them when to stop for the night. Bilbo's stomach would be an equally precise timekeeper but now he wasn't even hungry. He munched on his ration of cram, the crunches obnoxiously loud to his ears, and gulped down a few sips of stale water from his waterskin. The suffocating mass of Goblin-ridden stone above their heads put a damper on the mood of the entire Company and soon everyone was searching for the least uncomfortable place on the wet stone to roll out their bedrolls.

Tiredness weighed heavily on Bilbo but his nerves were keyed up like a string. Instead of preparing to sleep, he wandered off to the boulder where Nori had sat himself to keep the first watch. The Dwarf was turning a little carving knife in his fingers, eyes fixed on the tunnel they came from.

"I didn't know you whittled," Bilbo attempted a conversation.

"I don't," Nori said. "It's Bofur's."

Noticing Bilbo's raised eyebrows, Nori raised his own in reply. "He'll find out it's missing in about - hmm - five minutes. Maybe four."

Bilbo pursed his lips to keep from smirking. "And then he’ll come to frisk you for it."

Nori gave the not-smirk back. "That's the idea, yes."

Bilbo shook his head in amusement and got up to leave. The last thing he wanted right now was to be caught as a third wheel between two lovebirds. Suddenly something - no more than a flicker of movement, a whisper of sound - drew his gaze towards the tunnel. He stiffened and rubbed the tired soreness out of his eyes, trying not to stare too intently and keeping the surprised gasp swallowed down, aware of Nori's attentive presence next to him. It could be a trick of light, it could be a stray bat losing its way in the tunnels... but somehow Bilbo knew what - or who - it was.

"So you've seen it," Nori said quietly next to his ear. Bilbo nearly jumped. So much for pretending.

"I've seen something, yes," he whispered back, only half of the truth. "Was that a Goblin?"

Instead of answering that, Nori pointed silently to Bilbo's sword. A sliver of the blade was visible above the top of the scabbard and Bilbo drew it out a bit more, to make sure. It was silvery dim, gleaming with nothing but the natural lustre of polished steel. No blue glow whatsoever.

"It's been following us since we left Rivendell," Nori remarked casually. Bilbo still stared at the mouth of the tunnel but he could feel the Dwarf's eyes on him. "Too small for an Elf, and Orcs don't move alone."

"And you said nothing? To anyone?"

Nori shrugged. "I kept an eye on him but that little weasel lingered well back. Would have given me the slip if I tried anything. I was waiting for it to make a move."

"Should I tell–" Bilbo stood, hesitating. Something in him still felt ashamed at the way he tricked Gollum in their game. 'What's in my pocket', hardly a fair riddle. He always justified it to himself that it was rendered fair when Gollum accepted the challenge but... yes. Bilbo pitied Gollum once, enough to spare his life, and now he felt a bit responsible for his wretched fate. He wouldn't want to see him dead. Just far, far away from himself would suffice.

"It's your call, Bilbo," Nori said, still watching him, eyes inscrutable. Bilbo remembered the Dwarf's profession in Erebor - or the lack of one, to put it better. Nori was always everywhere and nowhere at once, well-versed in gossip and on first name basis with everyone who mattered. Out of all the Dwarves, he probably knew best the importance of keeping a secret.

"Just keep watching him. He's harmless," Bilbo said. He was aware that with this statement he admitted far more than he was happy with but it couldn't be helped. Nori would act if he believed Gollum posed any threat to the Company, but Bilbo seriously doubted that. That wretch would never alert the other inhabitants of the mountain to the Dwarves' presence - the Goblins were thieves and scavengers, they would not fail to pick a golden ring from a pile of gnawed bones.

That night, Bilbo put his bedroll in the middle of the circle of Dwarves, ignoring the surprised glance from Thorin. He usually slept next to the Dwarven king, sharing in his warmth and shy intimacy, but the king had chosen to sleep in his customary place outside the group, always on the sharp end of a possible attack, always on the watch, even while asleep. But Bilbo was too afraid of bony fingers closing around his neck in the middle of night to care for any hurt feelings. That night, he slept poorly, not sure if he was hearing or imagining the faint echoes of sobbing and wailing and muttering of a crazed voice somewhere in the caves behind them, snippets of arguments Gollum used to lead with himself, the mourning for his precious and the outbursts of hatred for the thief, Baggins.   

Half-way into the next day, they arrived in a familiar cave. Bilbo tried not to let his memories overcome him. The dread of having to riddle for his life was still sticking to the air, making him almost gag as he breathed.   

Thorin came to him, seeking out his hand and standing very close to him on the slimy shore, overlooking the foul water. Bilbo leaned into the comforting warmth but his eyes never left the shadows, ears never stopped straining for the hissing voice and retching cough of Gollum.

"You are very skittish," Thorin said.

"And you're very clingy," Bilbo groused. It was true that Thorin was very affectionate and fond of touching in private but in front of the Company he usually kept his composure and image of the somewhat remote king. But ever since they woke apart this morning, Bilbo found himself supported by a hand on his arm (as if he needed a crutch), or his fingers being intertwined with big, Dwarven ones (as if he needed guidance in the dark), or his back getting flattened against a broad Dwarven chest with a scratchy Dwarven chin tucked into his neck, and honestly, someone should learn to remove their metal-studded vest before they went for an embrace because the armour kept digging into bones Bilbo didn't even know he had.

Thorin instantly let go of his hand. "I thought you would appreciate the comfort. I know I would," he added quietly.

Bilbo sighed, took Thorin's hand and placed his smaller palm back into the bigger one. Thorin had an innate talent of making Bilbo feel like a cad, but to his credit, usually only when Bilbo behaved like one.

"I've been very selfish, haven't I." Bilbo was ashamed enough not to make it sound like a question.

Thorin looked as if he was steeling himself for something.

"Bilbo, you should know that I value your counsel–"

"Oh, no, no, Thorin, that’s not it," Bilbo rushed to placate him. "I'm not peeved that you overlooked me or anything. You're our leader, it's your right to let people speak or keep their mouths shut as you wish."

Bilbo squeezed the hand in his, pleased when he got an affirming squeeze back.

"I do appreciate your comfort, Thorin. I'm sorry. I didn't want to look like I needed to be coddled... I think I just want to be out of here."

The tenseness left Thorin in a huff of relief and amusement. "No one would think any less of you. This place is unsavoury even for us and we are used to living under mountains." He lowered his voice. "Ori had been holding onto Dori's elbow for the last two hours."

Bilbo hid his smile into Thorin's shoulder. "Alright. I get it. It's just this place. Wet and draughty. My throat scratches ever since that last rain on the road and I'll be very surprised if I'm not running a bit of fever tomorrow. I was always rather quick to catch cold, I'm afraid. And my skin feel as if snails crawled all over it."

"And touching makes it worse," Thorin concluded. Bilbo looked at him miserably but if Thorin was disappointed, he was hiding it well.

"I will tell Óin to put something stronger into your drink tonight, it will help with the cold," Thorin said and added lightly: "Since you are too proud to ask for a remedy yourself."

"Am I getting a taste my own medicine?" Bilbo smiled weakly. The fingers on both hands wouldn't be enough to count the times he had been fussing over saddle-sore, bruised or eaten-something-bad younger members of their Company - and cursing the stubbornness of Dwarves, when they waved off his concern and laughed at his mothering of them – during those weeks of travel before Rivendell.

"I don't know about yours, but Óin's is very good," Thorin winked, changing his mind about an embrace at the last second and settling for a bit awkward pat on Bilbo's shoulder. Bilbo tried to look grateful.

"The exit is not far," he said. "Tonight, we'll be camping under the stars."  

"I knew the Elves had spoiled you," Thorin joked and left, visibly relieved that Bilbo's withdrawal wasn't a result of any serious disagreement.

Just as he did at night, keeping the bulk of Dwarves between himself and the danger lurking in the darkness, Bilbo now pushed himself to the forefront of the line even though the Dwarves didn't need his guidance any more, feeling the nearness of the surface with their stone sense and following the trail of fresh air like eager bloodhounds.

Which was, of course, why there was no one in front of him to warn him about the rock aimed at his head when Gollum, knowing the secret paths all around this wretched place, took a  short cut to get ahead and stage a neat ambush.


	5. Ghosts of the Past

Bilbo had suffered the famous Dwarven forehead-knock greeting once. Entirely by mistake, as Bofur had been quick to assure him once he sobered, and from then on Bilbo had held the firm belief that a rock to the head would be better than a Dwarven skull. Until now.

Something at the edge of his attention must have alerted him in enough time to jerk his head back in instinct and save his brains from getting bashed in. The sharp-edged rock hit the ridge of his eyebrows - Bilbo saw black, then white, and then swimming grey tinted with red - and then it glanced off the bridge of his nose. Pain exploded through Bilbo's head and momentarily robbed him of every sense of where, what, and how long.

When he next came to, he tried to blink back the grey from his eyes only to for it to be replaced with more red. Something wet kept getting into his eyes and when he tried to breathe in, more of that wet and coppery tasting something gurgled at the back of his throat. Bilbo spat and tried again but he couldn't get enough air, something tight and heavy was around his neck, oh gods, the tunnel roof must have come down on him, he was trapped in a cave-in and he couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't see where up and down were and he opened his mouth again to scream for help–

Cold, clammy hand clamped down on his mouth and the grip around his throat tightened.

"Filthy, tricksy thief!" a whisper hissed in his ear. Bilbo's whole body jerked, pain throbbing in his skull with every flail but he couldn't make his limbs cooperate. Must be the blow, he tried to think through the daze. His entire body felt weak, heavy like lead, and he still couldn't tell right from left in the darkness. His throat convulsed and dark spots began to dance on the red in his eyes.

"Thinks he's been clever, bringing filthy Dwarfses with him, with their shiny axes," Gollum continued his whispered ramble. Remotely and faintly, as in a dream, Bilbo felt rocks moving under his back. No; he was being dragged over the rocks. Gollum was hauling him into some dark side tunnel like a snake pulling its prey into its den and soon Bilbo would be strangled and his pockets scoured for the ring before any of the Dwarves would even notice anything amiss.

"Where isss it? Where, precious?"

Bilbo tried to claw at the hand around his neck but his nails slipped on the wet skin like on slick fish scales. He tried to kick but his legs couldn't reach. Only a few pebbles loosened by his struggling skipped down the tunnel floor.

"Quiet, nasty little Hobbits!" Gollum's eyes glowed over him in the dark, narrowed and seething with fury that his first blow didn't kill the Hobbit. With one hand around Bilbo's neck and the other over his mouth, Gollum couldn't start  searching through Bilbo's pockets but from the quivering of his fingers it seemed he couldn't wait to.  

"Soon, the Dwarfses will be gone, out of hearing, out of reach, and then we'll split his head open and–"

The rest of his gloating had turned into a vicious screech and the hands blocking his airways had been torn from Bilbo's throat and mouth, tearing through his skin with claw-like nails.

Finally free to make a sound, Bilbo coughed and spat, pain driving its white-hot needles into his nose. He covered his head against the shrieking,shouting, and sounds of hobnailed boots on the stone and curled in on himself on the hard cold stone floor smelling of blood with his hand tucked between his breast and his knees, clutched over the pocket of his waistcoat. Still there. Still safe. His.

Then a new pain spiked through his head - a rough pull at the hair on the back of his head and Bilbo groaned, yielding to the pull and lifting his head to blink, confused, on a ferocious Dwarven face.

"Harmless!" Nori growled, his voice a mix of anger and disgust, and let go of Bilbo's hair without warning. The Hobbit's poor abused head made contact with stone once more and he closed his eyes, wishing the twisting needles and pulsing stars would just go away.

Then the stars turned black and the needles grew into a slowly thudding hammer. The last thing Bilbo felt was the bone-freezing stone beneath his face.

 

*

 

When he woke, it was again to pain, but this time actually bearable, just a niggling sensation on his forehead right above his eyebrows. Bilbo opened his eyes and they immediately watered, fluttering reflectively against the bright light.

"Hold still, lad. Just a bit more," Óin instructed him and dabbed again at the bridge of his nose with a piece of cloth. Bilbo squinted up. The cloth smelled of the herbal concoction the Dwarven healer used to dull the pain in bruised skin and numb the wounds that needed stitching, and it came away from his face stained with blood.

"Oh my," Bilbo groaned and spat out a disgustingly huge clot of blood. The sight of it made him nearly faint again.

"Have you bitten through your tongue?" Óin asked in concern. Bilbo shook his head, slowly and carefully, eyes firmly shut. He could remember the sharp pain in his nose and the gurgling at the back of his mouth when he tried to breathe. Did he walk straight into a rock wall or what?

"Just a nosebleed going the wrong way down," he explained in a hoarse whisper. His throat was sore. What happened? He was hit by a falling stone, was he...? Bilbo brushed his fingers against his neck and felt the scabbed welts half-hidden under his shredded neckerchief, and gasped when the memory of long merciless fingers around his throat finally resurfaced in his head.

Gollum. Failing to kill him with a rock to the head and trying to smother him in silence. And then Nori...oh. Bilbo jerked back from Óin's gentle grip on his head and looked around.

"Oi! Not done here yet!" Óin exclaimed in offence but Bilbo couldn't care less. He quickly sprang to his feet, fell back on his bum even quicker, and finally scrambled back to standing on his own two feet - maybe a bit wobbly, but that'd have to do for the moment.

The Company was scattered in a loose circle around them on a steep hillside amongst sparsely growing fir trees. Wonderful summer afternoon sun shone from the brilliantly clear blue sky and Bilbo's lungs expanded with relief that they made it out of those blasted caves so quickly that his head reeled and he stumbled a bit backwards. He would have landed on his bum again, condemning the fabled nimbleness of Hobbits to the eternal mockery of Dwarves, were it not for the firm hand at the small of his back, righting him back up and staying there as a solid support. Bilbo looked over his shoulder.

Thorin Oakenshield stared back at him with expression as dark as the caves they just left.

Bilbo felt his stomach shrink with something he hadn't felt in years, not since that day in the Erebor greenhouses when he stood up to Thorin, foolishly daring him and riling him up and the young, proud Prince had drawn a ceremonial dagger on him in an outburst of blind rage. But no, Bilbo quickly corrected himself. This was not the same Thorin, and this time the anger was in check, not madly dancing on the edge of a blade but slowly breathing like a great beast, aware of its strength and destructive potential, willing to be abated, to hear out the arguments first. Bilbo blinked and shot a quick glance to Nori. How much of Bilbo's secret was already out?

"Nori told me to ask you," Thorin said, tone quiet and yet heavy with danger like a cloud brewing with a storm.

Bilbo nodded without thinking and winced with the pain the movement brought. He swallowed and tried to make his voice carry above a mere whisper.

"I will tell you. But first, where is Gollum?"

"That creature?" Thorin asked. Bilbo realised he might never have used the wretch's name when he told his heavily edited tale to the Dwarves.

"Yes. Please tell me you didn't kill him," Bilbo's voice broke. For a reason he couldn't explain, that thought seemed unbearable.

 _Because then you'd have his blood on your hands. His death would fall on your head_. A treacherous voice whispered in Bilbo's mind. _You stole from him the only thing he loved and then you spared his life, condemning him to endless despair. You are the reason of his misery._

Thorin's furrowed brows parted in astonishment. "Will you tell me why I should not?" he demanded.

Bilbo bit his lip. "I can't - I don't know!" He realised how comical he must have looked, pressing his issue as if the world depended on it, without a clear cause, without words to defend his demands. How could he explain to the Dwarves - to anyone - the burden he carried of the half-buried guilt for Gollum's fate, the inexplicable certainty that Gollum should be, must be allowed to live?

"He lost everything," Bilbo stammered. "He's lost, and alone, and..."

 _He has nothing to live for without his Precious_.

That was it, Bilbo realised. His reason to keep Gollum alive might have been an act of natural pity once, but now it was a pure selfishness. He wanted to see that that broken creature could go on. That Gollum could get un-lost. Bilbo wanted him to live so he could see that there was a life possible after such a loss. It would lessen Bilbo's guilt about it. Yes, I wronged him, but look, no real harm done. Life goes on.

 _And you want to be sure there's hope for YOU when you lose everything that's dear to you_.

Bilbo squashed down the thoughts resonating with that impertinent voice in his head and fixed Thorin with an imploring look. "Please."  

Thorin's gaze shifted minutely to where Dwalin was standing and he gave a short, reluctant nod. Bilbo eagerly turned around.

In the dirt at the Dwarven warrior's feet lay Gollum, squirming like an earthworm and shielding his eyes from the daylight, wrists and ankles bound with a length of rope. As Bilbo looked on, Dwalin pulled Gollum's head up by the few thin hairs that somehow still clung to his bald skull and removed a gag out of his mouth. Immediately, the screaming came on in full force.

"Aaaarrghh! It burnsss! It hurts us! It hurtss!"

"The noise it makes is enough to bring down the mountains," Dwalin growled and kicked him. Gollum didn't seem to notice, still wriggling and trying to rub the bounds off his arms on the rock-littered ground.

"It'll draw all the Goblins to us!" Balin complained.

"It burrrnss!"

"He doesn't like the daylight," Bilbo said absentmindedly. But something seemed off about that assumption. He came closer and noticed the reddened skin peeking from under the loops of rope.

"Where did we get the rope?" It was silver in colour, smoothly woven and looked thin for the strength it apparently had. Bilbo couldn't remember any of the ropemakers in the Shire having this in their stock.

"I 'liberated' it from Rivendell," Nori admitted. "Looked handy, and there was plenty," he added as if it explained everything.

"Elvish stuff hurtss us, it hurtss us! Filthy Elfses!" Gollum tried to gnaw at his bounds, only to rub his burned mouth in the dirt and wail some more.

"Well, can't say I disagree with him on that one," Dwalin snorted.  

"Oh for pity’s sake! Hold him, Dwalin." Bilbo knelt down and reached for Gollum's arms. "There there. It's going to be all–"

"THIEF!" Gollum screeched when he finally noticed Bilbo over all his wailing. At once, the burning of his limbs seemed to be forgotten. Gollum snarled, pulled his legs under him, sprang like a coil before Dwalin could catch him, and threw himself on Bilbo. The force of the impact toppled them both over, and before Bilbo could as much as raise his hands, Gollum sank his rotten teeth into his bared neck.

Bilbo screamed, in surprise and in pain. Gollum was deceptively strong for someone so scrawny, and even though he was bound, Bilbo struggled in vain for several moments to get an upper hand. He could feel the skin on his neck breaking, Gollum's rabid growling filling his ears and then, suddenly, the swish of air parted on a blade - a spray of warm blood in his face - and the teeth on his neck were gone.

"No!" Bilbo exhaled even though he knew that any protest had to be futile now. When he sat up and wiped the blood from his eyes, Thorin was already cleaning his dagger on the grass. It was a broad, heavy blade, and it had cut Gollum's head from his shoulders in one smooth move.

"I hope you had your fill with your soft-heartedness," Thorin said, cold as stone, and tossed Gollum's head on the ground.

Bilbo felt something in him break and harden at the same time. He didn't want this! This was the very thing he tried to prevent from happening. And yet, something wretched in him curled upon itself and breathed in relief. _Only yours now._

"By Mahal, what _was_ that creature?" Balin asked after a moment of silence.

"That's what I'm asking myself," a familiar voice boomed through the clearing. Gandalf appeared from the trees, hat askew and more than slightly out of breath, and he strode to them at a fast pace.

"Confounded Dwarves!" he muttered into his bushy beard. "I had hoped I would arrive in time..."

The Dwarves parted their circle for him out of habit, several of them schooling their faces back into default scowls to hide the expressions of secret delight that the Wizard was once more with them. When Gandalf's gaze fell on the scene, taking in mauled Bilbo sitting miserably on the grass and the headless corpse of Gollum at his feet, his face fell and his eyes darkened with quick anger.

"This shouldn't have happened!"

Thorin scoffed. "You can try your hand at necromancy, Wizard, if you value him so much. Though I would rather if you did not."

With that, Thorin sheathed his dagger with a meaningful clank and turned his back on Gandalf, the message clear. He spared one unreadable glance to Bilbo and walked away.

"What a mess," Bilbo mumbled to himself unhappily, and for once he didn't mean the state of his face and clothes. Should he talk to Gandalf or go after Thorin? The Wizard obviously waited for an explanation, eyebrows raised in impatience and it was this commanding manner, grating on Bilbo's already frayed nerves, that finally tipped the scales in Thorin's favour.  The Wizard had already kept enough secrets from them, Bilbo and the Dwarves alike, most importantly from Thorin. He could damn well wait for once.      

"Ask Nori," Bilbo said wearily, nodded to Nori that he was free to recount the events as much as he deemed right, and went after Thorin. The Dwarven king had stopped on the edge of the thin wood and overlooked the landscape before them, sloping and jagged with sharp cliffs. It was still a long way to reach the eastern valleys of the Misty Mountains but at least, now they only needed to go down. Descending was always easier than climbing.

"Thorin..."

"Tell the others to get up and move. We need to find a safe place for the night." Thorin's eyes were still scanning the land and the set of his mouth was firm, unrelenting. Bilbo's heart sank.

"As you command," he muttered and didn't even mean it as a sarcastic quip. It came out resigned and flat, and timid with shame.

"Bilbo."

Bilbo swallowed and looked up. Thorin no longer looked as if he was seething with anger but his eyes were still hard, unapproachable, and to Bilbo's greatest dismay, wary.

"We will talk about the rest once we are settled for the night," Thorin said.

Bilbo nodded. This clearly wasn't the time for apologies. He went to carry out Thorin's orders and thought hard on how on earth he was going to explain why he didn't tell anyone about the danger he knew about, could have prevented, and had nearly fell victim to.

 

*

 

Bilbo sat in a little hollow in the ground created by a wind thrown tree, the mass of its roots with earth still clinging to them a solid wall behind his back, sheltering him from the night chill. His chosen sleeping place for tonight was a bit farther from the campfire that he would have liked but with the prospect of unpleasant conversation in front of him, he appreciated the bit of privacy. He shivered, stifled a cough, and swallowed another careful sip of weak tea. Working his throat muscles still hurt.

A long-fingered hand holding a metal flask appeared in his field of vision and Bilbo looked up to find Nori hovering over his shoulder.

"Óin sends his regards," Nori remarked as Bilbo accepted the flask from his hand. "It should help with the cough."

"Thanks," Bilbo whispered, uncapping the flask and taking a cautious sniff. Well, even if it didn't help with the cough, as a liquid courage it would do.

Nori plopped down onto Bilbo's bedroll next to him and together they sat a while in silence, looking upon the others drifting around the campfire and bidding each other good night in hushed voices. For a moment, Bilbo imagined how nice it would be, sharing this moment of quiet contemplation as comrades-in-arms, shoulder to shoulder with his friend. Sadly, Nori didn't seem the type for any backscratching.

"Go on," Bilbo prompted. "Tell me how big an idiot I've been."

Nori's gaze didn't shift from the campfire. "Bofur is a good Dwarf, you know," he said conversationally, completely ignoring Bilbo's previous statement.

Bilbo blinked at the unexpected appearance of a new topic. "Yes? He is," he agreed, just to be on the safe side.  

"A good Dwarf," Nori nodded. "Far too good for a fatherless, craft-less scamp like me but there you have him. The only one worth stepping foot into the mines in Erebor, for me, he was."

"I see," Bilbo nodded. He remembered well how things were in Erebor, Nori following after the cheerful miner like a sunflower after the sun, and trying not to be obvious about it.

"I'd been wooing him then already. Nigh on eighteen years now and I'm still persuading him."

Bilbo didn't know where this was heading so he kept his silence.

"It's worth it, you know? We Dwarves are slow to love. Very slow. Not everyone is lucky with a soulmark. With one you can make it quicker but the result is the same. We Dwarves only love once."

I will never love another, Bilbo remembered Thorin's words from the night in Bag End, the night they both believed would be their last.

Bilbo started to see what was Nori trying to get at.

"Thorin is a good Dwarf, too," he said softly.

Nori shot him a quick glance. His fingers played with a thin knife without him even looking at it, spinning it in a series of practiced movements, the light of fire flashing off the blade in one moment and gone in the second.

"Yes, he is. There aren't many I would follow on a mad quest like this. There aren't many I would call King," he said, as if to himself. "And he's far too young to lose the love of his life so early, and for naught but sheer stupidity," he hissed, finally turning to face Bilbo and fixing him with a glare. Bilbo shrank inwardly but on the outside, he resolved to hold on to his dignity.

"I know I've been an idiot," he assured Nori. "So if you're quite finished with your 'hurt him and I'll break you' talk..."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, Bilbo," Nori said, putting an arm around the Hobbit's shoulders. A second too late Bilbo wondered about where the blade went but he couldn't feel it against his neck, so perhaps he was still in Nori's good graces.

"This wasn't a warning. This was just a little talk, to make you understand." There were friendly lines around Nori's mouth but the light in his eyes was as sharp as the sparks of quartz in hard granite. "I'm keeping an eye on you now."

Nori vanished as swiftly as he appeared while Bilbo was still shuddering. He swallowed another mouthful of the strong liquor and looked over the bunch of Dwarves, trying to locate Thorin and gauge his mood from the distance, just to see what was coming next.

Oh my. Bilbo quickly took another swig from the flask. Thorin stood at the edge of the camp, talking to Gandalf. Which meant that his mood was going to be abysmal.  

 

*

 

"Yes, I didn't tell you - and I had good reason not to!"

Thorin was glad he'd left _Deathless_ with his pack close to the fire. He knew he had no chance against the Wizard in a close fight but with a long sword at hand, he might be tempted to try.

"Watch what you say next, Wizard," he warned him. There wasn't a good enough reason, couldn't be. And if Gandalf was about to bring out the 'bigger picture' argument…

"Don't try to threaten me, Thorin!" Gandalf was using every inch of the height advantage he had on Thorin but sometimes, even the wisest of the Big Folk forgot to take into account that Dwarves (and Hobbits) were used to look up at - and standing their ground against - taller beings all their lives. They weren't cowed by the necessity to crane their neck.

 

"You want to know why I didn't tell you the news of your father's passing when we met last year? It was for the sake of your quest, Thorin!"  Gandalf wasn't raising his voice but only just. "Had you known, there would have been nothing I could have said to talk you out of charging to Dol Guldur to retrieve Thráin's body. Tell me you wouldn't have, and I will apologise."

Thorin remained silent.

He would have gone to Dol Guldur immediately as soon as he knew, with a company or even alone, he would have raided that cursed fortress and bring the remnants of his father's body to Ered Luin, to be buried with proper rites, in his rightful tomb at Thrór's side. He would have been honour-bound to do this, and no Dwarf, Elf, or Wizard would have been enough to stop him.

And that mad, hopeless endeavour would have cost him his life. Gandalf was right.

"This much I know about the customs of Dwarves," Gandalf said, quieter now. "Dwarves must return to the sacred stone. I know how you care about your dead, Thorin. Would it appease you to know that I did everything in my powers to pay him proper respect after he died?"

It was not much but it was better, to know that Gandalf had buried the body and didn't leave it out in the open, for sport of the Orcs, for the scavenger birds to feed on and for the rains to wash the marrow out of his bones. Thorin turned his back on Gandalf to hide the sting in his eyes and concentrated on breathing.

"Were you planning to tell me at all?"

Gandalf finally sat down and ran a weary hand over his face.

"I wanted to persuade the White Council to take action against Dol Guldur first. That's what your stealthy escape from Rivendell interrupted: my endless disputes with that stuffed crane... oh, but that's neither here nor there. In short, I had hoped that the threat of Dol Guldur would be dealt with and the Mirkwood made into a healthier place by the time you would have come into your own, Thorin. For now, I can only give your father's last words, if you care hearing them from me."

The last proper interaction between father and son - barring the short, desperate order to stay back as Thráin led the charge to Dimrill Gate - had been when Thráin cut off the braid from Thorin's beard with his own hand. After Azanulbizar, Thorin had spent countless hours by Thráin's empty tomb, whispering his regrets to the stone. He never told his father that there was no grudge in him for that punishment. He wanted to make him proud before he made  amends - and suddenly, there was no one to be made proud any more.

Very slowly, Thorin turned back to Gandalf.

"I wish there was a way for me to be there with you. I would have told him I loved him."

Gandalf's eyes crinkled at the corners with a smile. "And that's exactly what he bade me to tell you."

 

*

 

Bilbo watched with trepidation as Thorin strode over the quieted camp to his place. He had enough time to reflect upon what he’d done and to imagine all kinds of the inevitable fallout: the rage, the reproaches, the accusations and the demands of explanation. He knew what he deserved, and he expected the worst.

He wasn't expecting to be seized by the shoulders, pulled up to his feet and have his mouth claimed in a rough and demanding kiss.  

There was no finesse, no teasing and careful gentleness about this kiss. Thorin bit and licked into Bilbo's mouth, swallowing every tiny sound Bilbo made as if he was starving for it. More kisses came; peppered haphazardly all over Bilbo's face, pressed into his hair, dropped down along the edge of his jaw, searing heat into the still hurting, bruised places on his skin. With a catch of his breath, Bilbo understood what this was about: it was Thorin reassuring himself of the fact that Bilbo was still there, staking his claim, erasing and replacing the malevolent touch of another. Bilbo did the only thing left to him: clutched his hands onto Thorin's shoulders, returned the kisses that happened to fall onto his mouth, and rode out the storm.

At last, Thorin buried his face in Bilbo's shoulder and let out a shaky breath.

"I feared I would never get to do this again," he mumbled into the thick material of Bilbo's jacket. "When we found out you weren't there... with us, in the caves. I was... we called. Shouted. Then Nori made us all keep still and listen... and he heard it, the rocks falling out of a side tunnel."

Bilbo carefully touched Thorin's hair, half expecting the Dwarf to move away. Instead Thorin leaned his head into his palm and Bilbo took it as permission to run his fingers through the black waves, again and again. A sob escaped him when he realised how much he missed it, how much he feared that Thorin would never again allow him close.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I believed - I was so sure that Gollum was gone from that place. It seems to me now that last time he was only scared of Gandalf's shining staff - he hated strong light. And even when I knew he followed us, I still thought that Gollum would do us no real harm. He only ever wanted to get to me, and I already spared him once. I thought if I could just escape him, get out of the caves, he would have left me alone again... I am sorry."

"As you should be," Thorin said, a hint of that heat Bilbo feared before returning to his eyes. "I cannot protect you when you keep me unaware of the dangers you attract, do you understand?"

Bilbo huffed and opened his mouth for the automatic rejoinder: "I can pro–"

Thorin brushed his lips across the fresh cut on Bilbo's forehead and Bilbo winced. Point taken.

"Are there any more things I should know?" Thorin asked, his face serious. Bilbo shook his head rapidly and attempted a joke.

"Gollum was the only dirty secret of my past, I think."

Thorin hadn't laughed. "There are too many ghosts of our past following us on this journey," he sighed. Bilbo flicked his gaze to the spot where Gandalf was now getting to sleep. He could well imagine how unpleasant the conversation between the king and the Wizard had to have been.

Bilbo pulled himself up to steal one last kiss before setting out his own bedroll but Thorin wasn't letting him go yet.

"One more thing," the Dwarf said. "When we carried you out of the caves and dragged that thing... Gollum, out with us, he kept wailing and raving about you having stolen from him, calling you a thief, over and over. Did you really...?"

Oh, but Bilbo really didn't want to discuss the ring and all that it encompassed right now. Thorin would demand a demonstration, Gandalf would want to examine it, and Bilbo was already so tired. It was just a ring, a handy trinket with a special kind of magic about it. Making one invisible was certainly helpful but didn't make him omniscient or powerful as well! Really, there was no reason to flaunt the ring to anyone.

"Yes, I did, in a manner," Bilbo admitted, surprised with himself how easily a not-quite-lie - a nicer version of the truth, more like - came to his mind. "There was a game we played for my life, a game of riddles. To the last riddle, neither of us knew the answer at first - but I found one before he did. I suppose he saw himself already winning, and he didn't like coming to lose very well, I can tell you."

"The answer to a riddle," Thorin repeated, clearly not entirely convinced.

"Yes, exactly that," Bilbo groused, really tired now. "Can I go to sleep? My throat hurts from all that talking."

Thorin did not say a word after that, bent down instead and gathered Bilbo's things in his arms. Striding purposefully back across the camp, he plopped the heap next to his bedroll with a face that brooked no arguments.

"All right," Bilbo muttered and smiled. "I've missed you, too." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story of Thráin follows mainly the book!verse timeline, with a little addition of movie!dialogue.


	6. Under the Fir Trees

Bilbo Baggins was, unwittingly, the third mortal being to carry the One Ring, and if it was able to feel, the Ring would have despaired at such an ill chance of fate.

Though the magic bound within the Ring lent it a great deal of cunning, it didn't make it sentient. It had a will of its own but that will was singularly bound to returning to its Master. It could perceive its surroundings and react to outer circumstances but it didn't reason, didn't lay out plans and didn't make decisions - similar perhaps to a seed that, once buried in the good earth, doesn't wilfully decide between sprouting or rotting.

The Ring wasn't alive but it wasn't an inanimate thing either. A spirit of great evil was confined within its innocuous, pretty shape. All its bearers could feel its presence as a voice in their head but they were all deceived, for the Ring could hide its malice the same way Sauron once wore the fair form of Annatar. What they didn't know was that the Ring felt them as well: it traced the outlines of their minds, tasted their fears, drank from their willpower and fed on their souls.   

Apart from its true creator, nobody could master the Ring. It could be borne - and it was, as the Ring could change its shape to fit any hand. It could be wielded, for the Ring was generous with its gifts of invisibility, longevity, and unnatural courage. It could even be claimed - but that was inevitably the beginning of the end for its bearer. For what they all failed to see was that it could never be owned. It was the bearers that became owned instead - charmed, claimed, converted and ultimately destroyed by the Ring.  

Isildur was easy. Despite the noble Númenorean blood in his veins, he was still a mortal Man in the end. Men were weak and corruptible, and Isildur's strength was already shattered by the grief over his father's death.

Then along came a Hobbit named Déagol who picked the Ring from a river bed where it waited, as patiently as only a band of indestructible gold can wait. And though Déagol was the one to find it, the Ring immediately called out to his kinsman. Déagol was a simple peasant and a fairly stupid one, content to dig for worms and have fried fish for supper his entire life, but Sméagol... Sméagol was simple but also cunning. Not evil, but nasty: that sort of fellow who's never there when it's his round to pay for drinks, that kind of a friend whom you always have over for dinner but who's never at home when you want to come round.

It was perhaps the Ring's first mistake, if it were able to make conscious decisions and thus eligible to err. It was perhaps that in Sauron's grand designs, the Hobbits were overlooked, and unaccounted for in his tactics. Either way, the Ring had underestimated the nature of his Hobbit bearer. Although it was easy to convince Sméagol to kill for the Ring, the deed terrified him. The guilt and remorse crushed his very core and he sought the company of his people - who had cast him out, of course, because murder was an abominable crime, horrendous beyond imagination. But instead of embracing his inner darkness, instead of taking the Ring to Gundabad or some other stronghold of evil, Sméagol kept the Ring all for himself. When the penance for his crime was denied to him, the fruit of it became his only consolation, the very light of his eye, and he shunned the rest of the world entirely.

The Ring realised its unfortunate predicament but it was trapped. It tormented Sméagol's waking mind, haunted his dreams, disfigured his face and crippled his body, but it could not make itself undesirable. As much as Sméagol suffered, he would not, could not let go of his Precious. It was the full glamour of Annatar, the Gift-bearer, that Sauron put into the making of his master ring. And for this uninterruptible charm, for this irresistible beauty Sméagol loved the Ring just as much as he hated it until his soul split in two.

Bilbo Baggins was a Hobbit as well, equally resilient to the lure of power. Avarice was another matter; Hobbits had a great inkling to greed but unfortunately only where comforts were concerned. Bilbo was gullible enough to want the Ring for himself and guard it jealously but the drive stopped there. It didn't sway him towards evil because evil hadn't touched Bilbo before. He didn't claim the Ring violently like Isildur did, he didn't take a life for it like Sméagol did: he simply found it, lying lost on the ground. And when challenged to keep it or lose it, he still didn't raise his sword to spill blood. He began the possession of the Ring with pity, and that pity built a wall around his soul that the Ring had searched in vain for a crack to latch onto.

So the Ring waited, and slept for seventeen years.

Then it woke, aware of a stirring within its bearer's soul, and it felt a new emotion there: young, doubtful, fragile love. Now this was something the Ring could work with.

The Ring couldn't vanquish love but it could taint it. Care could be blown up into over-protectiveness, admiration could be reduced into jealous possessiveness. The Ring knew that a soulbond of love was an adversary too strong to be challenged openly. Bilbo would never choose his Precious over his soulmate - at least not now. When in danger, it would be Thorin whom would Bilbo protect above all else, not the Ring.

It was a young love, a mere sapling of what would one day branch out and yield the most deserved fruit, but it was rooted deeply and strongly within the soulmark, a connection blessed by the Valar themselves. Such a connection couldn’t be vanquished - but the Ring could use it as a support to wrap itself around. Like a poisonous ivy climbing up a young tree, it would feed on it and shade it from sunlight until all that remained from the once sound tree would be only a hollow trunk.

Love couldn’t be uprooted but it could be changed. After all, the Ring had been well enough acquainted with Hobbits to be familiar with the concept of grafting. The fruit a tree bears doesn’t need to taste the same as the one from which seed it sprouted.

So the Ring forwent fighting and made itself an ally. It made itself look helpful. Its whispers would exaggerate every danger and fuel every insecurity Bilbo had about his own worth. Slowly, it would teach Bilbo to rely on the Ring to keep Thorin safe. Slowly, the Ring would make itself indispensable.

  
  


  *

 

Bilbo fought tooth and nail to hold onto his branch, quite literally, as he pulled himself up a bit to hang by his elbows and could finally spit out a mouthful of pine needles. Sticky resin clung in a large patch to the side of his face and the rich, heady smell was almost enough to block out the stench of Wargs, Orcs, and acrid smoke below them. Almost.

A dark and fathomless abyss opened beneath his dangling feet and splintering bark was bruising the skin of his hands, drawing blood from under his fingernails. There was no way out, he realised, nowhere to go save for a fall into the deep, perhaps a merciful death when compared with what awaited them, taunting and leering, under the tree, but a death nonetheless. Even the wind had sided with their enemies, spreading the flames of the fires they started onto their own tree. They were trapped, and they were going to die.

The beginning of it all was so sudden that a small part of Bilbo was still ready to believe it was all an especially bad dream, a nightmare from which he was going to wake up any moment. The Company had awoken in the middle of night to the sound of Warg howls, much too close for them to seek out a hiding place. It was clear that the Warg masters must have kept their beasts silent for a surprise attack, and let their bone-chilling howling erupt only after they caught a fresh scent of the Dwarves, when it was no longer possible for their predatory instincts to be tamed or suppressed.

So the Dwarves ran, with death hot on their heels. Bilbo couldn't remember much of that mad chase apart from twigs flicking his face and a Warg somehow falling to the ground in front of him, Dwalin's teeth bared in a bloodthirsty grin and then Gandalf stopping them all before the void gaping beneath the edge of the cliff. The ground betrayed them, plummeting several hundreds of feet down straight as a lead line, and the Company escaped the snapping jaws of Wargs by climbing onto the trees. One by one, the trees were felled, until they all gathered on the last one, hanging over the cliff edge, ears filled with the ominous cracking of wood and the cruel laughter of Orcs, and Bilbo had never felt so helpless.

 _"Gurid dum!"_ the Orcs screeched. _"Ragshi shirzlum! Sho gad adol!"_

Whatever they were calling, Bilbo thought he didn't really need a translation. Their intent shone out of their blood-shot eyes, it was dripping down from the drooling snouts of the Wargs. And yet the Orcs weren't attacking yet, weren't hacking at the tree roots with their jagged swords or climbing the tree behind them to try and pull them down. Were they really waiting for the fire to roast the Dwarves first?

 _"Nuzdigid?"_ A new voice rose above the havoc, silencing the Orcs and Wargs alike. _"Nuzdi gast."_

It was a deep, growling, powerful voice dripping with malicious contempt and Bilbo finally saw who it belonged to - a big pale-skinned Orc, riding a white Warg, prowling onto the scene like a king taking his seat at a feast.

Bilbo didn't need to be told who that was. He didn't even need to see the stump of the sword-arm, now terminating in a wicked forked blade. He'd heard enough stories, and he felt his heart drop through his stomach and fall into the darkness under their feet even as he tried to catch and hold Thorin's eyes, tried to plead with him not to…

 _"Ganzilig-i unarug obod nauzdanish, Torin undag Train-ob,"_ Azog sneered and Bilbo gritted his teeth. Even if Thorin couldn't understand the foul speech the Orcs were using, the mention of his father was guaranteed to make Thorin's blood boil.

Helpless, furious, frightened, and with his arms slowly giving way to the strain, Bilbo watched as Thorin ran down the tree trunk towards his mortal enemy.

 

*

 

_"A Dwarven warrior strikes to kill. He doesn’t allow his enemy a second chance."_

Thorin remembered his own words from that day he watched Bilbo sparring in Erebor's arena, so many years ago. Lord Fundin had been lecturing him then - what were his words? Doesn't matter if your enemy holds onto their weapon or not, as long as they breathe, the fight is not over.

Thorin had been so sure he had ended Azog at Azanulbizar, once and for all. Cutting off half of his arm - no beast should be able to overcome such grievous wound.

But Azog had survived. Thorin allowed him to breathe, didn't strike to kill, and let his enemy have a second chance. Allowed the Defiler to walk the earth and laugh at the vengeance of Dwarves. His grandfather's death, the desecration of their ancestral home in Khazad-dúm, Azog's boasting that he would end the line of Durin - all that was not avenged.

Thorin saw the red tint rising into his vision, felt the icy fury flood his veins. They said that Thráin went into a berserk rage before he charged the gates of Moria. Perhaps there was a madness, this exhilarating eclipse of reason, that Thorin had been lucky to inherit from his forbears. He didn't see the fires, didn't hear Balin's shouts, didn't feel the tree shaking under his feet as he ran.

He didn't even register the strike to his chest until suddenly he was lying on the ground, unable to reach his sword or draw breath, and his first clear thought pulling him out of the madness was _I have failed them all._

 

*

 

Bilbo watched Thorin run to meet his death and in his heart he knew that there was little hope for any other outcome. Miracles didn't happen on demand. Azog had everything - height advantage, higher ground, better reach with his weapon and most importantly, a calm head. Bilbo saw Thorin's body fly through the air and screwed his eyes shut before he could see it hit the ground.

As if in a dream, he watched himself scrambling up the branch, readying his little sword and throwing himself down the trunk. An Orc poised his sword above Thorin's neck and Bilbo rammed into him, driving his Elven blade as deep into the squishy flesh as it could go. The creature stiffened, a horrible gurgling sound spilled out of its mouth and then it collapsed, and for a span between two heartbeats Bilbo thought, Yes, I can do it, I can keep you from harm.

But before he could lift his eyes towards the next Orc, Azog was upon him. Of course. The big chieftain wasn't going to stand by and idly watch anyone coming between him and his prize. Somehow Bilbo dodged the Warg's teeth but the feeble block of his sword raised against the swinging mace knocked the blade out of his hand. Blue light flashed through the inflamed night in a high arc and embedded itself in the forest floor, too far for Bilbo to try and retrieve it. And then Azog was sliding down from his mount and swinging his mace again, and Bilbo was not quick enough, not strong enough, he had no experience in fighting and he stumbled and fell flat on his back, and the mace came down on his ribs unerringly and without mercy. Pain shot through Bilbo's chest and then faded just as quickly, and Bilbo saw the world go dark and the loud thrum of his heartbeat in his ears go mute, the last sensation in his life being the taste of his own blood on his tongue.

Bilbo snapped his eyes open and gasped, the shock nearly costing him his precarious hold above the abyss. He spat out the taste of blood and felt the painful tug on his lip where he had bitten through it. He was still hanging on the fir tree. Azog was still roaring his triumph to the night sky, high on his white Warg. Thorin's limp body was still flying through the air. It was just a vision. There still was time to act, to put himself between Thorin and danger, and then…what?

 _This is what happens if you fail_ , a nagging thought flickered through Bilbo's mind.   _And you will fail, you are just a little Hobbit. You stand no chance alone against such a foe._

It was true, Bilbo thought frantically. He'd seen Orcs before, twisted, mutilated creatures. It hadn't prepared him for the sight of a true Gundabad-bred Orc, a mountain of bulging muscles that crushed everything in its path. _What do I do_ , his mind stuck itself on a loop, _I have to do something._

_You must not fail to protect what is yours._

And then he had an idea.

 

*

 

**"Bring me the Dwarf's head."**

Bilbo shuddered at the relishing malice in the Orc's words, stifling down a yelp when he realised that he could understand them. Another unforeseen benefit to the protective magic of the little gold band now resting snugly around his finger. Even the Wargs, beasts larger and apparently also cleverer than wolves, seemed to have a language of their own.

_We will drink your blood_ , they growled and barked. _We will feast on your flesh and roll in your bones._

 

"Bilbo! Where's Bilbo?" He heard the yelling of someone behind him as he moved down the tree, ignoring the flames licking at his bare soles. Someone's - perhaps Dori's - voice carried over the dismayed noise: "The Halfling's gone! He must have fallen off!"

But there was no time to shout out and reassure them, not without giving away his only advantage. In a single moment, he could see Thorin straining to turn his head on the ground and look towards the tree, his jaw slack with defeat and eyes brimming with despair. Bilbo leaped over the last few yards separating him from the Orc holding a sword ready to strike, and buried his blade in the exposed armpit, tearing through the flesh unprotected by armour until it reached the heart.

 

*

 

Thorin's chest throbbed where it took the brunt of Azog's mace. His head swam after it hit the rocks and his breath was short, every intake laced with pain from broken ribs, and his sword had fallen just out of reach. He was going to die because he'd failed, and even his death, that could at least buy time for the others - for Bilbo - would be pointless now. Bilbo was dead, killed by a long and dark fall into these nameless woods and his small body lay crushed on the mountain side.

He looked back up, wishing for the filthy blade to just come down and end it all, when the Orc above him halted his movement and shuddered in a strange spasm. Then the arms raised above his head went limp - the sword clanked dully on the rocky ground - and the Orc slid down sideways, crumbling like a puppet with its strings cut off, and it didn't make any sense.   

Azog nearly fell off his Warg with fury. _"Nargiz khobdi Rani Khozdil!"_ he yelled, snarling with rage when several Orcs around hesitated to come closer to the dazed, helpless Thorin, as if the Dwarf was protected by a spell - or guarded by a coil of venomous snakes.

Spouting threats and insults, Azog dismounted his white Warg, lifted his blade-arm to finish the job himself, and suddenly arched his back with a roar, dropping his head to stare in surprised disbelief at a blood stain blooming darkly on his stomach. Thorin thought that he must have been passing out and his eyes were playing tricks on him because there was nothing but the gush of blood, no weapon to cause the injury–

Then in the midst of the inexplicable wound appeared a glowing tip of a sword, just for a second, before it was forcibly pulled back through Azog's body with a loud squelch. Azog staggered and fell to one knee, revealing a small figure behind his back, too small for a Dwarf, not even a Goblin... Thorin almost didn't recognise Bilbo, so terribly was his face transformed by vicious determination, teeth bared in a vindictive snarl, eyes flashing with fire and blood and vengeance. But it was Bilbo, alive and by some miracle standing right there, and wasting no time in slicing his little but, oh, so sharp sword through Azog's neck with all his strength.

The head of the great Orc chieftain fell to the ground with an expression of shock still etched onto its face.

This had to be a dream, Thorin thought, as he saw the world darken around the edges, a faint sneaking up on him. He was dead and haunted by visions on his way to the Halls of Waiting, visions of a better world where rescue always arrived at the eleventh hour. From a great distance he heard the cheering of his Company, then frightened shouting accompanied by the sharp cracks of wood, and finally, strange otherwordly cries coming from the sky and the flapping of giant pinions.

Exhaustion and pain claimed him and Thorin lost consciousness.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Gurin dum_ \- Kill them all  
>  _Ragshi shirzlum_ \- Tear them to pieces  
>  _Sho gad adol_ \- Drink their blood
> 
>  _Nuzdigid? Nuzdi gast. Ganzilig-i unarug obod nauzdanish, Torin undag Train-ob_ \- Do you smell it? The scent of fear. I remember your father reeked of it, Thorin son of Thráin.
> 
>  _Nargiz khobdi Rani Khozdil_ \- I want the head of the Dwarf King.
> 
> Source of the Black Speech:   
> http://www.elendilion.pl/2013/01/06/g-i-p-report-hobbits-quenya-orkish-and-khuzdl/


	7. Shapeshifter's Home

"You should be thanking whoever made your armour," Óin tapped his fingers on the metal studs embedded in the sturdy leather vest that usually covered Thorin's torso and upper arms and now lay spread over the rest his clothes piled on the floor. Several of the studs came loose but the leather underneath wasn't torn. Óin rubbed his palms to warm them and pressed them against the side of Thorin's ribcage, fingers prodding none too gently. Thorin's jaw worked but he didn't make a sound.

"The ribs are badly bruised but none are broken. No punching in the chest for the next couple of days, though," the healer warned. "Lean back. Any pain here? Or here?"

Leaning back on his elbows, Thorin huffed after a particularly mean jab into his abdomen: "No pain apart from where you are trying to rip a hole in my stomach - uh!"

Óin didn't show any measure of concern over his rough treatment. Instead he said, as matter-of-factly as you please: "Spleen and liver appear intact. With a hit like that, it's always better to make sure you haven't burst anything internally."

He put a finger under Thorin's chin and lifted his head, turning his face this way and that to better examine the cuts where the mace nicked Thorin's chin and nose.

"Count yourself lucky this won't need stitches. My bag with potions, including the numbing ones, took a flight down that cliff."

The bump and scrape at the back of Thorin's head were the last items on Óin's inspection list.

"Thank Mahal for whatever hard rock he chose to carve your skull out of," he said at last. "Since you haven't thrown up until now, there's probably no concussion. Might be careful with sleeping tonight, though. You should be woken about every two hours, just to make sure there's no swelling. But something tells me that I needn't worry about you getting too much sleep tonight..." Óin half-turned towards the door, lifting a teasing eyebrow - and promptly dropped it when he took in the expression on Bilbo's face.

Bilbo had stood by the door during the entire examination, holding it open when someone needed to go through with fresh water or out with blood-stained washcloths, and concentrating on deep cleansing breaths. When he realised that this exercise was doing nothing apart from running the air through his lungs, he took to clenching and unclenching his hands. His fingers tingled with the urge to wring something.  Preferably certain Dwarf's neck.

 

*

 

Being plucked off the ground like a mouse by the talons of a giant eagle - apparently the very Eagles of Manwë, and Bilbo should hold their service in the highest honour, Gandalf had said - and being carried on its back until the dawn broke, with the speed of the flight lashing through his hair and his fingers going numb where they clenched on the slippery feathers, that wasn't the worst. Being dropped off on top of a rock tall enough that even the massive birds could circle it and perch on it like on a roost, the breathtaking view sadly marred by the prospect of a long and tedious climb down said rock, that still wasn't the worst.

It even wasn't watching Thorin being woken up by a spell, because perhaps he wouldn't have otherwise, and then coming over to hug him with the rest of the Company - and despite the warmth of his welcome and the aspiring morning sunshine, still feeling cold, terribly cold. Burying his face in the dirty furs of Thorin's coat and trying to pretend that the reality of what he did wasn't crashing on him, yes, that was hard, but it still wasn't the worst.

The worst was the looks from the Dwarves. Gandalf had been busy healing and then leading the way and hardly spared any attention to him, but the Dwarves… The Company had cheered when he killed Azog, and slapped his back multiple times when they reunited on that stupidly high rock until he feared they'd cripple him with their enthusiasm, but at the same time Bilbo couldn't help but to notice the sudden awkwardness in their demeanour. Every one of them was suddenly anxious to give him a wider berth - just as they were used to doing with Thorin. But with Thorin it was understandable, he was their leader, their King - their reserve was a sign of reverence - but with Bilbo? It could have been newly acquired respect, but it didn't feel so. Their fleeting glances were wary, almost as if they feared his temper.

_Of course they're afraid of you. They've seen what you can do._

But before Bilbo could begin to properly wallow in his sense of exclusion, it became clear that Thorin hadn't escaped his encounter with Azog entirely unscathed. The trek down the rock that Gandalf kept calling Carrock devolved into an unspoken, but all the more fierce, competition over who would be helping Thorin, since his ribs obviously weren't in any shape for climbing, and the hair on the back of his head was matted with blood. They ended up taking turns because nobody could bear for long the seething of one Thorin 'I-didn't-ask-for-help' Oakenshield.

With all due haste they arrived at the home of a shapeshifter named Béorn whom Gandalf professed to know. The renown apparently didn't travel both ways, because Bilbo would wager the hair on his feet that the angry bear - and their host, rolled into one – didn't know Gandalf at all, didn't like him one bit, and liked the prospect of strangers invading his home even less, if that was even possible. In that, Bilbo found he could relate to the bear-man. That evening in Astron, when Thorin decided to pay him a visit and unintentionally had sent his entire Company in advance to eat their burglar out of house and home, still prompted his Hobbit vindictiveness from time to time. But it was probably the only way Bilbo could ever relate to Béorn, judging from the sheer size of the furniture and everything inside the house. Honestly, why did everything on this side of the Misty Mountains need to be so enormously over-sized?

At least a bowl, that the owner of this house probably used to wash his feet, made a big enough basin for Thorin to be bathed comfortably. They cleaned his various cuts and scratches, Óin prodded at him to his healer’s heart's content and Bilbo stood watch by the door, silently fuming the entire time.

"Right," Óin cleared his throat, gaze shifting between Bilbo and Thorin, "I am done here. Our king is well on the mend but he shouldn't be putting much strain on the ribs."

Bilbo jerked his chin in a terse nod, wilfully ignoring the message underlying Óin's orders, and closed the door behind the healer.

Thorin sat on the bench, wet strands of hair strewn across his bare shoulders, and watched Bilbo in silence. His hair looked blacker after washing, without its usual gloss, and the streaks of silver stood out starker, making it look almost like a delicate coronet. He kept his arms folded over his chest, hiding most of the array of bruises that blackened whatever skin wasn't already covered with his thick fur of hair or an intricate tattoo, and Bilbo couldn't even stand to look at him.

Some bunches of herbs were strung up by the window to dry. Bilbo thought of inspecting them, hoping that perhaps they would be of use in making a healing salve. But on the way to the window he got too close to the Dwarf who didn’t miss the opportunity in seizing his hand.

"I thought you lost to me."

Bilbo looked incredulously at Thorin's hand, currently covering his own. He lifted both his eyebrows in a clear grimace of 'you're one to talk' and still kept his silence, but didn't extract his hand either.

Thorin turned it palm up and passed a soothing thumb over the scratches from splintered wood.

"Before you had cut down Azog, I heard the others crying out that you weren't there. That you must have had fallen."

Bilbo was gritting his teeth so hard that he could feel a headache building.

"I could not see you," Thorin said. Then, in a lower voice, he added: "I _did not_ see you."

Bilbo snatched his hand back and busied himself with balling up bloodied rags and tossing them into the cooling water in the bowl.

"You weren't there, Bilbo, you weren't anywhere I could see. Until you suddenly appeared behind Azog. How could have all the Orcs and Wargs missed you? How did Azog allow  you to get so close?"

It was clear that Thorin expected answers. Must be a kingly thing, Bilbo thought, always getting answers even when you were asking utter poppycock and avoiding the real issue. But since Bilbo apparently couldn't evade this conversation, he decided he could oblige Thorin. For now.

"If you recall, that was one of the reasons Gandalf insisted I came on this quest. I am remarkably good at sneaking."

Thorin was shaking his head. "I know what I saw."

That was it. That was the last drop under which the dam of Bilbo's restraint broke.

"Do you?" he asked, voice rising. "Then perhaps you would care explaining to me what I saw!" Because I am almost certain I saw a certain Dwarf running headlong like an utter fuckwit towards a foe nearly twice his size, on a bloody Warg, and swinging around a mace that alone was bigger than said bawbag's head–" Bilbo's voice broke and he took a shuddering breath.

Thorin said with regal serenity, as if it could explain everything: "Azog."

"So I've heard! The filth that swore to wipe out the line of Durin, and so on, and so on. So you decided to make it easier for him and present your birdbrained head on a silver platter?"

Thorin's jaw was working. "Berserker rage–" He cut himself off, looked away and added quietly: "I do not expect you to understand."

Bilbo gave short, incredulous laugh. "Oh, don't you give me that. I've spent enough time around Dwarves to know some things. The important thing here is, Thorin, that you're their king! You can't just see red and fly off to get your head bashed in. You're their only hope, and my idiotic soulmate–"

Thorin was visibly gritting his teeth now. "My intent - my _duty_ \- was to buy you time."

"Time to get us nicely crunchy and juicy soft, roasted on that tree, you mean," Bilbo spat and then shivered when he realised how that had sounded. A bit like Gollum. He was being nasty and macabre but also he was right - the Orcs were too many, even the little time Thorin could have bought them would have made no difference. Thorin could not have known that their airborne rescue was on its way.

Thorin's expression closed off, his composure draping over him like the King’s cloak, and Bilbo finally deflated.

"I'm sorry. That was ungracious of me."

He carefully extended his hand and gave a shaky smile when Thorin grasped it.

"I know - I know what Azog did - what he meant to your people, to your family. I understand. But you scared me so. The thought of losing you frightened me. And in the end I... wasn't being any wiser than you, was I, now?"

The memories were still there, just below the surface of anger - because being livid was so much easier than being frightened. Maybe the berserker rage that the Dwarves spoke about wasn't always red and gold, thunder and glory. Maybe sometimes it was a grey and ever-moving world filled with voices whose language he didn't know and yet somehow understood. A world painted by echoing shadows and flames lacking heat, framed by the glow of yet greater flames somewhere beyond the edge of his senses - just the thought of them terrified Bilbo, and he resolutely wasn’t looking that way. Maybe berserker rage was that strange clarity and singularity of his mind, maybe being in that state was simply knowing where to aim a killing strike, how to show no mercy. Maybe it was all just blood, black blood covering his sword, warm blood dripping from his hands, the sharp taste of blood in his mouth–

Bilbo snapped back to the feeling of something wet on his cheeks and to the realisation that he had his face pressed into Thorin's shoulder and was sobbing into his hair, soft, smelling of honeyed soap and delightfully cool on his red-rimmed, burning eyes. Big arms held him around the shoulders and a deep voice carried from Thorin's chest directly into Bilbo's heart:

"Bilbo, you were _magnificent_."

Bilbo sniffed. "That's a very Dwarven thing to say, but thank you."

He would have been quite content just standing there, having the side of his face caressed by gentle fingers and breathing in the clean smell of Thorin, safe and healing and alive, but never let it be said that Dwarves weren't stubborn - even to let go of a seemingly abandoned conversation.

"Bilbo, how did you get past the others? I didn't see you until the last moment. I would have thought Gandalf had somehow spirited you there, if such magic was possible."

Bilbo sniffed again and rolled his eyes, aware that Thorin couldn't see it as his face was tucked comfortably under the Dwarf's chin. "It was dark. The only light there was from the wildfire, and that was flickering and confusing at best. And you hit your head on the rocks when you fell. Frankly, I am a bit disappointed that you didn't see me at all. By all accounts you should have been seeing me twice."

Bilbo heard the laughter rumbling in the chest below his ear but also felt the head above his own move in a persistent shake. "Is that why most Men aren't even aware of your existence? Are the Hobbits literally able to become invisible?"

Maybe it was the laughter, the relief of being alive, Thorin's acceptance of him or all those things combined, but Bilbo laughed too, suddenly feeling lighter than he had in days. Wouldn't it be nice to share his secret? Perhaps the memories of murderous rage in the grey-veiled world would be easier to bear then.

"No, no no, Thorin, that's not it," he looked up to find Thorin's clear, amused eyes and anchored his gaze to them like a jittery boat to a mooring pole. "Though I have to admit that most Hobbits would dearly like to become invisible just to escape their pestering relatives," he giggled. "It's nothing, really. You see, I have this li–"

"Where is he?" boomed an angry voice from outside the room and in the next second, the door swung open to reveal a very irate Wizard.

"Bilbo Baggins! A word, now."

 

*

 

They retreated to an adjoining room that turned out to be some kind of a mow, stacks of hay lining the walls and sacks of grain piled in the corners. A shapeshifter's pantry, Bilbo thought to himself and snorted, an odd one but befitting the dining hall where cows and sheep were stabled.

Their talk was going to be about the - his - ring, Bilbo just knew it. He now regretted his youthful, shortsighted honesty in which he told Gandalf of  finding an invisibility ring after they escaped the Goblin caves all those years ago. But even then he couldn't make himself admit that he won - took - the ring from Gollum. He had waved it off as having found it in a pile of bones in the Goblin town, just a lucky charm and a handy trinket from some traveller that the Goblins had captured and eaten. The thought that Gandalf could make the connection between the ring and Gollum sat uncomfortable with Bilbo for a reason he couldn't quite explain. He wondered now if Gandalf had interrupted them on purpose, him telling Thorin about the ring, just then. Which would also explain why he hadn’t had his ‘word’ with Bilbo already on the Carrock. Perhaps the Wizard didn't like the idea of the Dwarves running around with the knowledge of magic golden rings. Bilbo recalled those overheard words of Elrond in Rivendell. Maybe there was a grain of truth in that tale of gold-sickness…

As soon as the door closed behind them, Gandalf rounded on him, hands braced on his hips and eyebrows drawn into a stern frown.

"Bilbo, what were you thinking?"

"It appears that I was the only one actually thinking there!" Bilbo said in defence.

"It appears that you were a fool!" Gandalf retorted, keeping his voice - for all his indignation - fairly low. "I told you not to use that ring of yours lightly."

Bilbo felt his hackles rise - a good thing, too, that his anger at Thorin hadn't quite simmered down yet and was more than happy to find a new outlet.

"And what occasion, pray tell, would be grave enough to warrant I use it? Something even worse than Thorin about to have his head cut off? Should I have kept the ring for after we were properly roasted - oh I wager Orcs would just love an invisible snack! Do you think being able to walk unseen would've also helped me to sprout wings and survive the fall from the cliff? Tell me, Gandalf!"

"The situation wasn't that dire. The Eagles were coming."

"But I didn't know that! You didn't deign it necessary to tell us that you'd summoned them!" Bilbo raised his voice in exasperation. "What use is hope when you keep it for yourself?"

For a moment, Gandalf almost looked chastised, as if it occurred to him for the first time that not everyone was always on top of things as Wizards usually were.

"My dear boy," he said then, "you shouldn't have underestimated your courage."

Bilbo chuckled without mirth. "Courage alone would have helped me less than you think." He recalled his vision where he died by Azog's hand, his end good for nothing but merely postponing Thorin's inevitable death.

Gandalf, ever so quick to anger, narrowed his eyes. "You have changed, Bilbo Baggins, and not entirely for the better!"

Before Bilbo could summon a proper blue streak to unleash at the Wizard, the door creaked and Thorin walked inside, holding himself a bit stiff but with his glower firmly in place.

"The shouting is impossible to miss," he began, "and I will not have anyone abusing my _zagrzarbê_."

He moved to stand beside Bilbo and treated Gandalf with his darkest scowl. "If Bilbo is not the Hobbit you knew, I think him better for it! Hobbits are soft and gentle and lost in the wilds, but Bilbo stood fearless in the face of danger."

"Fear is wisdom in the face of danger, Thorin!" Gandalf answered back just as crossly. "And being of a gentle soul is not a weakness."

"Bilbo saved my life and defeated my most hated enemy."

"Defeated!" Gandalf scoffed, throwing his arms wide in exasperation. "There wasn't even a fight, that was an execution!"

Bilbo just stared at the two pigheads arguing and muttered: "Yeah, because I would have stood such a chance in a honourable fight."

"The Defiler had disgraced my grandfather, he did not deserve any less coming to him!" Thorin growled.

Something flashed before Bilbo's eyes - the memory of his blade. He could see it again, slicing through the pale flesh. He could hear the scraping sound where it had briefly caught on a bone. He could feel again how satisfying it was to see Azog spasm and go still, how easily it was done, how right it had felt.

Now he only felt hollow. His chest hurt as if a hole had been clawed into it - _run through with a sword_ \- and he couldn't get enough breath because the air kept escaping. He felt something tingling his cheeks and when he touched his face his fingers came away wet with clear liquid, warm, so very warm, for how cold his fingertips felt, cold as a stone, cold as steel…

"Can you listen to what I'm saying?" Gandalf carried on. "There's a necessary kill in the heat of a fight to prevent even worse things from immediately happening and then there's the cold-blooded, deliberate savagery of beheading–"

Bilbo screamed, curling into a ball on the floor and rocking back and forth with his hands pressed over his ears. Distantly he could register Thorin falling to his knees next to him and barking out at Gandalf:

"Out! You have done enough damage."

 

*

 

Bilbo gasped when Thorin's lips found his, their touch gentle but firm, demanding his attention, breaking through the haze of disjointed images that spun wildly through his head and grounding him in the present. It was like finding a familiar, worn-out path in the middle of a gloomy forest where monsters lurked behind every tree and Bilbo eagerly followed it, letting himself be pulled away from the world of shadows that seemed to cling to his skin, grabbing at his feet with ghostly hands, very, very unhappy to let him go.

"He's gone, _ansasith_. You're safe. We are safe. The worst is behind us, _markhê_. I'm here," Thorin kept murmuring between kisses, words that Bilbo understood and somethings in Khuzdul that he didn't, hands running over Bilbo's arms and back in a circular soothing pattern. Bilbo blinked against the salty sting in his eyes and had a silly thought - hilarious in its sudden clarity - that he very much hoped Gandalf had the mind to close the door on his way out. Because now he understood Óin's insinuations from earlier. What Bilbo wanted - no, needed - was to make Thorin _his_ , the healer's warning be damned, and he wanted it now.

He shifted in Thorin's arms into a proper embrace, locking their bodies together, and dragged his open mouth blindly over the sharp angle of Thorin's jaw. The scratch of beard was just shy of painful and utterly brilliant, and Bilbo found his way back into Thorin's mouth, licking and nibbling and sucking his intent instead of having to spell it out. The expression on Thorin's face when Bilbo finally pulled back for breath was enough to tell him that he got the message clearly. The blue of his eyes turned dark and fierce, and he seemed to be at war with himself – a battle between desire and control.

To sway him towards the right decision, Bilbo grabbed a fistful of silken-soft hair and pulled, hard, tilting Thorin's head back and dragging his teeth across the taut muscle where shoulder met neck. The noise Thorin made went straight to Bilbo's groin and spread warmth there,  spark after spark, building a hungry fire that demanded to be fed.

Following a daring impulse, Bilbo braced a hand against the floor and pressed the other palm into the broad chest, pushing down. Thorin went down willingly, one bump of his spine at a time, until the still tender back of his skull ended up cushioned on the back of Bilbo's hand and his hair spilled in a halo around him on the hay-littered floor. Rising onto his knees and dropping onto his elbows, Bilbo followed, burying his nose in the soft place below Thorin's ear.

_Valar help you if you ever pull something like that on me again._

_I can't lose you._

_You're my everything._

_You're mine, mine,_ mine.

Wild fragments of thoughts, some that he couldn't even recognise as his own, whirled through Bilbo's head, but what actually got past his lips, mumbled into Thorin's neck, was a broken–

"Thorin - I want - make me forget. Even for a while, make me forget."

 

*

 

Thorin groaned, his control on the verge of shattering, and he fought to hold on to it even as Bilbo was rubbing his face all over his chest, his small hands busy stroking every part of Thorin's body he could reach. He knew the mindset Bilbo was in. That blinding need to touch, to hold, to make sure their hearts were still beating, that they lived to see another day. Thorin knew that feeling very well, after wading through the carnage of Azanulbizar he had nearly fucked Dwalin, for Mahal's sake, and wouldn't that have made for a couple of very awkward years between them. But Bilbo was more than just a bassuzagh, a battle-bonded, a shield-brother. Bilbo was so much more, and Thorin was ready to give him everything he needed.

With just a grin for a warning he flipped them over, gathered Bilbo in his arms and shuffled them both him into the nearest corner where a loose pile of hay made for a better bed than the bare wooden floor. Bilbo's delighted giggle still carried an undertone of panic, as if the shock lurked just beneath his consciousness, and Thorin kissed it away, making a short work of Bilbo's shirt and both their trousers. It would have been nice if he could take his time with it, peel the fabric off Bilbo's skin inch by inch and clothe him with kisses instead, but that was a promise for another day.

Holding himself braced above Bilbo still put too much strain on his ribs and so Thorin rolled them over again, grabbing Bilbo's hips and tugging him down. Their bodies pressed together and every little bit of friction set off a swarm of sparks buzzing under his skin. He carded his fingers through the shorter, unruly strands of hair at the nape of Bilbo's neck and somehow that proved calming. Bilbo pressed his forehead against his in a gesture so intimate that Thorin's throat closed up, transforming words into a breathless moan.

For a couple of minutes they lay there, limbs tangled and hips grinding against each other. Bilbo's eyes were squeezed shut and tiny whimpers escaped him, his brow beaded with sweat as he chased something he couldn't reach, not like this, this wasn't enough.

"Thorin, I can't – I want–"

"I know. Let me. I will take care of you. Let me."

 

*

 

Bilbo had never felt a need like this before. He wanted to crawl inside Thorin and never let go of him. For a moment he had a nonsensical wish to become the ink in Thorin's tattoos, to draw himself onto his skin so that he could never be parted from him. His own skin was unmarked, not flaunting any artwork rendered in ink, entirely unblemished save for the stark letters of his soulmark. But Thorin's name was no longer written only on his wrist. He could feel it now stamped into the very marrow of his bones. His heart was beating in the rhythm of it, every drop of his blood was chanting it: Thorin, Thorin, Thorin.

"Let me, Bilbo."

At this point Bilbo was too far gone to question anything that Thorin was planning. He just nodded and let himself be manhandled into a new position on his side, with his back against Thorin's chest, Thorin's arm cradling his body and his hair falling over his face like a curtain, shielding them from the rest of the world. He could feel Thorin's arousal hot and hard against his bottom, slotting into the cleft between his cheeks and staying there, rocking and rubbing but not pushing any further. Thorin's breath was hot and teasing on his ear, one of his hands wandered in gentle patterns over his chest and the other finally wrapped around his hardness, straining desperately and already slick with sweat and need.

The strokes were slow, maddening in their counterpoint to Bilbo's impatience. Tiny kisses and licks peppered his ear, neck, shoulders, and Bilbo nearly wept at having all that strength and focus of his lover concentrated on keeping him overwhelmed and yet still yearning for more. He wanted to move, to buck into the perfect circle of Thorin's hand, but Thorin kept his strokes slow-paced and steady. The tiny thrusts of his member nudging at the sweet spot behind Bilbo's balls were measured and short, suspending him in pleasure and heady with arousal but also denying him completion. If Bilbo had his wits about him he would have commended Thorin on the cleverness of it, how wonderful it was to be pinned between two points of delicious torture. But Bilbo was beyond coherent words, beyond thinking, Thorin's hands and hips and kisses and the sweaty scent of him had obliterated everything in Bilbo's mind until there was nothing but pleasure, nothing but Thorin.

As if sensing the exact moment when Bilbo couldn't bear it any more, Thorin tightened his fist and quickened his pace, biting a sucking kiss into the soft skin on Bilbo's neck. Bilbo gasped out a ragged exhale, gritting his teeth against a scream, and his peak washed over him almost too quickly, tearing through his nerves and coiling his insides into a painful knot. He heard Thorin's groan, felt the final snap of his hips and the warm flood between his legs, and with another breath the cramped muscles in his abdomen loosened and a mind-numbing relief spread through him, bone-deep contentment and satisfaction. His mind was completely, blissfully blank.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Neo-Khuzdul is courtesy of striving-artist on Tumblr, an amazing scholar, artist, and writer. 
> 
> _zagrzarbê_ \- "my sword married" (battle-wed)  
>  _ansasith_ \- little saviour  
>  _markhê_ \- my shield


	8. To the Elfin Path

Bilbo woke sometime in the middle of the night, judging by the chilly edge of the darkness, no longer soft with the last remnants of evening warmth but not yet thin with the approaching dawn. The arm trapped under his body fell asleep and was now tingling with pins and needles as he tried to flex his fingers to renew circulation, and his entire body felt like a slab of meat that someone put on the spit to roast and then forgot to turn. His back was unbearably hot because of the furry Dwarven chest pressed along the length of it, his neck was awash with sweat from all the heat accumulated under the rough blanket - an empty sack, Bilbo realised when he rubbed the fabric between his fingers - that Thorin probably managed to throw over them before they fell asleep. The sack didn't even reach their knees and Bilbo's feet were cold.

He was also sticky in unmentionable and all the more uncomfortable places, sore from sleeping on the floor (as the thin layer of hay, turned into hard-pressed lumps during their previous activities, was hardly a patch on Shire bed standards), his stomach ached with hunger and at the same time the thought of food sickened him, and above all, Bilbo was feeling thoroughly embarrassed.

Last evening... he had rather lost it, hadn't he?

Bilbo felt the heat crawl up his cheeks as he thought on what he must have looked like. A wild beast throwing himself at Thorin. Blindly, hungrily, unthinkingly - oh Green Mother, Thorin must still have been hurting, musn't he? And Bilbo had gone and rubbed himself all over him, like a rutting animal, scrounging for relief in pleasure. He’d given himself over and let Thorin handle him - Bilbo felt himself stir at the memory of that intense pleasure Thorin had wrought in him and really, was there no end to his shame? - and then, Bilbo had promptly fallen asleep as soon as he was satisfied, without a single thought of consideration for Thorin. What a spectacular lack of manners.

He gingerly removed the arm thrown over his waist and got up, careful not to disturb Thorin's sleep. It was a fine moonlit night outside and enough light was coming through the small window to get by in the dark. Wrapped in his dirty shirt and with his trousers in hand, Bilbo tiptoed to the door, afraid even to stretch his back for the loud pop his spine would surely make, and cracked it open just enough that he could slither out, grateful for the good state in which the shapeshifter kept his door hinges. In the adjacent room he found the basin where they’d washed Thorin earlier. The water was foul and long cold. Bilbo found a washrag that didn't smell too nasty and scrubbed himself as well as he could, donning his trousers and feeling marginally better when he no longer had the dried evidence of his weakness plastered all over his thighs. Out in the main hall, lit by the still glowing embers in a huge hearth, Bilbo carefully stepped over the snoring Dwarves and climbed on a chair to get to the huge pot of still lukewarm water stangind on the stove and fill a jug. A warm blanket under his arm, clean washcloth over his shoulder, a jug of clear water in one hand, and a cup (that in his small hand felt more like a pint) of milk in the other, he shouldered his way back into the room where Thorin slept.

Except that the Dwarf wasn't asleep any more. The hay rustled when Bilbo came in and a pair of sleepy, half-lidded eyes gleamed in the dark corner, blinking slowly like a lazy cat.

"Sorry, I was just..." Bilbo trailed off and lifted the jug of water in lieu of finishing his sentence. The water sloshed inside and a few drops spilled over the rim.

Thorin accepted the water and washcloth, cleaned himself and put on his trousers. Bilbo clutched at the cup of milk and felt a little useless. With a relishing grin, Thorin tossed the sack that had served as a makeshift blanket away into some dark corner, and rolled out the soft knit blanket. It was large enough that Thorin could lie spread on top of one half and cover himself with the other, and he held one corner up in the air for Bilbo to burrow in and join him.

Bilbo took a sip from the milk, put the jug on the floor by the window and fidgeted with the lacing on his trousers, hoping that if he could dally long enough, Thorin would fall asleep again without him. Bilbo was sure he'd seen a nice wall in the hall that he could bang his head against until dawn broke.

"Come back to sleep," Thorin called softly.

No escaping, then. Bilbo lay down gingerly and tried to relax into the Dwarf's embrace. But Thorin had picked up on his tenseness immediately, because barely a minute passed before Bilbo heard a low, soothing voice in his ear:

"Let it run its course, Bilbo. Cry, if you must - I am not - no one is going to judge."

It took Bilbo two blinks to realise that Thorin had been speaking about Bilbo's shocked reaction to the fight.

"Oh no, no," he blurted out, "it's fine, really. I think that what we... um... it really helped me. But that's the thing, Thorin. I let you help me and I didn't think of your well-being. You were wounded and hurting and I–"

"Peace, _markhê_ ." Thorin laughed, pressing the tip of his nose into Bilbo's curls. "My wounds are already healing. Whatever wizardry Tharkûn used in his spell is working fast. It was your spirit that was hurting and needed help."

"Um. Yes. Thanks for that," Bilbo muttered and couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed that Thorin viewed their encounter only as 'necessary help'. It was making Bilbo's earlier desperation look all the more pathetic, when his want and primal instincts hadn't been mirrored on the other side.

"Sorry for being so needy," he said for the sake of saying it, feeling his ears burn with shame and grateful for the darkness.

"Stop fretting, Bilbo," Thorin said, apparently not fooled by the darkness one bit. "I liked the needy part..." he nuzzled the back of Bilbo's neck, "... I liked it very much."

Bilbo unconsciously tilted his head to allow Thorin better access before he reined himself in again, cursing his own weakness. He wriggled and shifted farther from the temptation and tried to come up with a change of topic.

"That word you called me - _markhê_ . What does that mean?" After a moment of silence, he added lamely: "That is, if you're allowed to tell me."

Thorin's voice came out distinctly deeper and gravelly when he said: "My shield."

"Oh." Being reminded of his bravery in this way was nice. Bilbo carefully felt around the memory of the kill in his mind. It was no longer raw and frightening - still uncomfortable, but no longer crippling. He turned his head and found Thorin's lips in a gentle, unhurried kiss.

A couple of seconds later he pulled back from the kiss with wide, startled eyes. "But your shield! Your oaken branch! It was left at the cliff, the Eagles dropped it - oh I'm so sorry..."

"Do not trouble yourself."

Thorin carded his fingers through Bilbo's hair, playing with the strands, coiling them onto his forefinger and smoothing them again. Some of them were long enough to fall over Bilbo's eyes and tickle his nose. Bilbo supposed he should do something about it, soon.

"That shield was a token of what I once thought was a victory - one I had been too hasty to claim as such. I shall make myself a new one and I would have you tell me what to carve on it."

Bilbo traced his fingers over the runes on his wrist. The inscription was illegible in the dark but by now he knew it by heart.

"Don't drop the name, though. My Mark is not about to change and it could lead to confusion in the future."

Thorin laughed again, a deep chuckling without sound that Bilbo could feel in the shaking of his shoulders. "You found me once already before I came by my name. I'm certain that your cleverness will find a way in the future, too."

"Wait, you can't bear your battle name when you're king?" Bilbo had only a vague understanding of royal lineages, and what little he knew, mostly pertained to the world of Men. He remembered there was an awful lot of numbers involved.

"Not officially, once I am crowned. I will be put in the records as Thorin II. I have sworn to carry the name Oakenshield until I shall be hailed as the King Under the Mountain."

Bilbo hmmed and wriggled a bit, settling lower in Thorin's embrace and resting his head on the Dwarf's forearm. He closed his eyes and listened to the breaths behind him lengthening, felt the arm around his ribs growing heavy with sleep. But despite feeling warm, safe, and calmed by the presence of his lover, sleep eluded Bilbo. Something about their conversation kept going round his head, making him worry even as he told himself it was silly to do so.

It was intimidating to think of Thorin as a king. Rationally, Bilbo of course knew that should they succeed in defeating the Dragon, Thorin would rise in station. Even though his people already acknowledged him as their king, he was only an acting one - a crownless king, an exiled king, a king without a kingdom. Dwarves were serious about their traditions, and wearing the raven crown of Erebor would lend a proper gravitas to the title. Thorin would have a seat under the massive jagged stone rippling with gold veins in the grand throne room... that didn't seem like a place for a Hobbit.

Ashamed a little over his own pettiness, Bilbo couldn't help the thought that he rather liked this - _his_ \- Thorin. Thorin Oakenshield, without the added halo of kingship around him.

  

*

 

Despite having spent weeks on travels in the wilderness and years of labouring hard from the break of dawn to establish a steady life for his people, once accommodated in a safe place with no watches to keep and no Wargs to run from, Thorin was most decidedly not a morning person. He barely grunted when Bilbo rolled out of their makeshift bed in the mow and didn't even crack an eye open when Bilbo pressed a kiss to his forehead, murmuring about smelling breakfast and going out to get some.

Bilbo couldn't suppress a grin at the sight of the Company gathered around the table in the dining hall. Gandalf was who knew where and every last one of the Dwarves sat on the long bench, with their elbows uncomfortably high on the table, and with their feet dangling high in the air. It was glorious, finally being not the only one.

"The halfling!" Béorn grinned when he saw him and, to Bilbo's instant embarrassment, overtly sniffed. "Had a good night, I gather?"

"Very good, thank you," Bilbo replied primly. "And I'll have you know–"

"–he's not a half of anything!" Bofur and Bombur finished in unison, bursting out in giggles. Bilbo rolled his eyes but nodded.

"Apologies, my mistake," Béorn run an appraising glance over him. "You're barely a third of me."

Bilbo sputtered, the Company roared, but all too soon they hushed and the mood became just as sombre and reserved as it had been ever since the Carrock. Bilbo bit the inside of his cheek and went to find himself a clean plate.

The place at the head of the table had been kept empty and Bilbo assumed it was waiting for Thorin. Balin was seated next and there was a nice place just to the other side of him that Bilbo thought he could squeeze himself into but just as he approached, Balin hopped down the bench, taking his plate with him and placing it next to Dwalin. He motioned to Bilbo to take the seat he’d just vacated, his smile as kind as ever, as if he hadn't just basically demonstrated that he didn't want to sit next to Bilbo if he could help it.

And just like that, Bilbo had had enough. "Can't we just get this over with?" He levelled everyone with a glare and proclaimed:

"Go on, tell me I'm a vicious savage, I'll promise I'll never cut off _your_ heads, and we can go back to being friends."

The Dwarves stared at him. Bofur was the first to speak.

"What are you talking about, Bilbo?"

Bilbo pointed an accusing finger at every one of them in turn. "You! You, acting all--- careful around me! Because I had, as Gandalf so graciously put it, coldly executed that Orc scum and apparently I can't be trusted not to fly off the handle anymore!"

He ended his tirade pointing to Balin. "If you're too afraid to sit next to me at the table, I shall take my breakfast with the cows."

Balin took a surprised step back and actually looked a bit horrified when he said: "But Master Baggins, no one is afraid of you."

"We're proud of you, laddie!" Glóin shouted.

Bilbo still glared. "And what is this 'Master Baggins' nonsense then? I thought we were past that."

Balin's shock was replaced with confusion. "How else would I go about giving you the respect you are due?"

The rest of Dwarves nodded, completely serious. Bilbo sighed.

"Right. So you're not disgusted by me, cheers to that, so can we dispose of the respect as well? For the thousandth time, I'm not a warrior, and I'venot been magically turned into some Orc-slayer."

The confused expression spread slowly over the entire Company. Then suddenly Dwalin smirked and said to Balin: "I told you he didn't tell him."

"My coin purse is on the other side of the Mountains, help yourself," Balin replied resignedly.

"Wait. Who didn't tell me what?"

Balin heaved a great sigh that Bilbo had come to recognise as his 'I'm-not-old-enough-to-be-the-advisor-to-such-a-clothead-of-a-king' sigh.

"Our King can be a bit.... reticent... in these matters–" at this point, Dwalin snorted, "–but I  really thought that it had  already been explained. You're _u’zaghzarbul_ , warrior-wed."

Bilbo vaguely remembered Thorin using a similar sounding word the day before, and wasn't it nice to finally have a translation? Only, Bilbo had the dawning suspicion that the expression wasn't as metaphorical as his romantic soul would have believed it to be.

"You see, Master Baggins, you and Thorin were already courting. And saving the life of one's intended in battle... for Dwarves, it counts as marriage. One of the forms of marriage. Of course, the traditional vows would still have to be exchanged once we reach the Mountain but..."

Bilbo felt a bit like fainting. "Marriage. Right."

Dwalin turned to him with a huge toothy grin. "Congratulations."

Bilbo struggled to recover his glare. It was somewhat marred by the fact that his face was probably splotched red with embarrassment... but then an idea occurred to him.

"Wait a minute. Does that mean that you actually have to do what I tell you?"

Ten Dwarves exchanged quick glances, followed by a series of guilty shrugs.

"Looks like we got hoisted by our own petard," Óin admitted.

Bilbo grinned. "Excellent. From now on, you will call me Bilbo, and I don't want to hear any more words on that."

 

*

 

Stuffed with bread and honey to his Hobbit heart’s content, Bilbo gathered a good serving of each on a plate and carried it back to Thorin. Sweet bread wasn’t perhaps a Dwarven breakfast of choice but Bilbo figured that it would be good to have something to sweeten the sour apple they had to bite into.

Marriage, my hairy foot, Bilbo thought to himself and snorted.

“Good morning!” he greeted upon entering the room, his tone so clipped that Thorin instantly raised his head in alert. For what little time they had actually been  in a relationship, he had already learned to be on his guard when good-morninged by Bilbo Baggins.

“Eat, drink, there’s plenty, you need to get your strength back. And while you do, you might think on explaining why you didn’t tell me we were _u’zaghzarbul_ \- hope I said it right, there.”

Thorin paused in the middle of dripping honey on a slice of bread.

“Who told you?”

“Someone not you, that’s kind of my point!”

Thorin put his breakfast down and fixed his eyes on the plate, obviously searching for the right words.

“According to the custom of my people, yes. But, Bilbo, I would not have you bound by Dwarven traditions. You’re a Hobbit.”

The words of the diatribe that Bilbo had been putting together over the course of his breakfast, ready to be unleashed on Thorin at the first opportunity, died on his tongue. He swallowed them down around a bitter lump in his throat.

So the reason why Thorin didn’t tell him they were married - or battle-married, or whatever - was because… he didn’t wish them to be. Because Bilbo was just a Hobbit, after all. It was a folly to think that their courting could ever lead anywhere.

“You had already conducted your part of the courting after the ways of my people, back in Erebor,” Thorin continued, eyes still down and unaware of Bilbo’s stricken face.

“In my pride, I thought little of how accomodating you have been. I thought it my due privilege, and I cared not to treat you like an equal, to inquire after the ways of your people. I would rather not repeat this mistake.”

Oh. _Oh_. Bilbo blinked furiously and didn’t even care that a forlorn tear or two made it past his eyelids. Thorin wasn’t rejecting him. He was being _considerate_. Oh Yavanna. Of all moments for him to choose to be that…

But Thorin was still talking.

"And I am aware, Bilbo, that I am not what you have expected of your soulmate. You courted a Prince to a Kingdom, now there is barely more than my sword to my name. I am to provide for you, to cherish you, to protect you - and I am failing on all accounts. You do well by yourself in fight and it was actually you who slew my sworn enemy... I would understand if you wouldn't want to be bound to me."

For a couple of seconds, Bilbo was speechless. How long had he been agonising over not being enough for a noble Dwarf king, when all that time, it was Thorin who thought himself unworthy?

Bilbo swallowed again and hoped that his voice carried enough of the famous Baggins smooth confidence to cover its rather watery quality at the moment.

“I’ll be gladly called your _zagrzarbê_ , Thorin. If you’ll have me,” he said, repeating the word Thorin had used for him the night before, tongue stumbling a bit on the foreign cluster of consonants, hoping that he got it right. He’d only heard it once but he’d always had a good ear for languages.

Thorin looked at him with such hopeful surprise in his eyes that Bilbo wanted to kiss him, right there, before breakfast, before all the Company, before all the damned Mountain of Dwarves, for all the world to see. Well, he’d have to wait for that.

“I have given you but one gift out of three,” Thorin objected, as if he couldn’t believe that some traditions could, indeed, be overlooked.

“Plenty of time until we reach Erebor,” Bilbo replied easily. “Or you can, you know, court me the Hobbit way. Bringing me flowers...”

“I have no idea which flowers are edible,” Thorin said guiltily and with utmost seriousness. Bilbo boggled.

“For a mere decoration, you…you Dwarf! Why would I want to eat a courting bouquet?”

“You Hobbits seemed to me to place a great importance on food,” Thorin shrugged and this time Bilbo didn’t miss the playful tug on the corner of his lips.

“Oh, you...” Bilbo breathed. “You know what? You’re absolutely right. I have been terribly remiss in observing proper Hobbit ways. I haven’t had a second breakfast in ages, and I intend to have one now.”

And with a determined smirk, he pushed the plate off Thorin’s lap and proceeded to remove his trousers.

 

*

 

Béorn turned out to be, if not a pleasant, then at least a reasonable and generous host, especially after he learned about the death of the Defiler and spent a good night of Orc hunting in the mountains by himself. He agreed on lending them ponies and giving them all the supplies they needed to reach the woods of Mirkwood - and then a lot more food just to see them through it.

"If you are the Wizard you claim to be, I need not warn you against the dangers of Mirkwood," Béorn said to Gandalf, aside of the others but not unkindly.

"The light of the flame of Anor should be enough to dispel the gloom and illusions, though even I can do nothing against the poison in the earth and water," Gandalf replied.

"There are worse things than enchanted rivers and cursed paths, Wizard," Béorn warned him. "Do not lead them too close to the old fortress of Dol Guldur. All foul things are drawn there."

"The sorcerer who dwells there," Gandalf took in a sharp breath. "The White Lady had warned me against him. He may not be what he seems."

"The Witch of the Golden Wood?" Béorn asked with interest. "I saw her once. Wouldn't mind to see her again," he added a bit wistfully, and Gandalf was glad for his beard that obscured the twitching of his mouth. But they had serious matters to discuss.

"What do you know of the sorcerer - the one they call Necromancer?" he asked.

"I know he is not what he seems," Béorn replied gravely. "Orc packs from Moria are gathering in his fortress. Fell beasts are bred there."

"Wizard!" Thorin called, interrupting them. "Time is a-wasting!"

Béorn quirked one bushy eyebrow at the impatience of Dwarves and nodded to Gandalf in farewell.

"Go now, Gandalf the Grey, and do not stray from the path."

 

*

 

They rode, sturdy ponies carrying them at a fast trot without bidding, and Béorn's words weighed heavily on Gandalf's mind. The forest was sick, poisoned and decaying, and every day it seemed to grow stronger. Something moved through the shadows, hidden from sight. And now with the news of Dol Guldur…

It couldn't be helped. Despite Saruman's assurances that the Necromancer was nothing but a mortal Man dabbling in dark magic, Gandalf had to go there and see for himself.

"This is it," he announced when the ponies left them at the edge of the forest, the opening of the elfin path just about visible through the bushes. "You have to go on without me. I have business in the south."

Ignoring the outraged squabble of the Dwarves, he took Bilbo by the arm and led him a few paces away.

"You can't be leaving us!" Bilbo protested.

"I wouldn't if I didn't have to, but as we have to part, I would not have us parted on bad terms," Gandalf bent down to the Hobbit. "My apologies for my harsh words earlier, Bilbo. They were ill-advised and ill-timed, and I am sorry."

Bilbo huffed. "Apology accepted, of course, but what about–"

"About that ring of yours, yes," Gandalf interrupted him brusquely. "Beware it. I do not trust it."

Immediately Bilbo's entire posture changed. "What, do you want it for yourself?" he asked sharply. His shoulders hunched protectively, his ears twitched in agitation, and his hand closed over his waistcoat pocket, as if he wanted to take something out and faltered at the last second. And then, as if on a dare, he'd shot out his arm with his palm extended, and on it lay the little golden ring.

"Here! Take it and be done with me!"

Bilbo's hand trembled and his jaw was clenched. Gandalf was almost sure that if he made a move for it, the ring would be snatched from his reach despite Bilbo's own words. Perceiving the distress of his little friend, the Wizard was taken aback by a sudden hunch.

"No, my dear boy, I will not take it. It is perhaps better that it stays with you."

Bilbo put the ring back so quickly that Gandalf hadn't even see him move. "Good!" he said, too jovially for Gandalf's liking. Bilbo was masking something. Relief?

"I mean, it's only fair," Bilbo continued. "It's mine anyway. I found it."

Suspicion grew and darkened in Gandalf's mind. "I have never seen a Hobbit quite so taken with a piece of gold," he remarked thoughtfully.

Bilbo shrugged. "I know - but it is pretty, isn't it? Not as pretty as a flower - or a dish of sausages, mind you - but it's beautiful. Precious little thing." Bilbo was positively prattling now, and Gandalf liked it less and less.

"I guess it comes with having a Dwarf for a soulmate, that I can appreciate good workmanship. Anyway, it's my lucky charm. And as I am your lucky number for this Company, I better keep it."

"I must insist you use it as little as possible, and only in the utmost need," Gandalf stressed his previous advice. Bilbo frowned and folded his arms across his chest.

"I’ll obey you, but I reserve judgment on when the need arises, you understand. Since you won't be there to supervise us..." he drawled the last words plaintively and Gandalf huffed, shaking his head.

"Oh, spare me your sarcasm, Bilbo! My concern is well-founded. Trust me as you once did."

 

*

 

Before they split ways, Gandalf requested a word with Thorin.

"I want you to look out for Bilbo."

Faced with the Dwarven look of disdain, Gandalf quickly imagined all the possible retorts brewing on Thorin's tongue and intercepted them, quietly and earnestly:

"There's more to him than meets the eye. I wish I could tell you but it is not my place to tell, and I fear no good would it bring if you knew."

Thorin's scorn transformed to suspicion. "If there is a threat to Bilbo, I demand you to act. Bilbo is not a pawn in your games!"

Oh, but if Gandalf was right, Bilbo was so much more than a mere pawn. If Gandalf was right... and right now, the Grey Wizard wished from the bottom of his heart that for once, he was wrong. He recalled the words whispered to his mind by Galadriel, that night when the Dwarves escaped Rivendell under the cover of night. _Something evil is leaving the Valley with them..._ He thought she had meant the seeds of madness in Thorin, the slumbering sickness of his line. How blind have they all been? What if they all had missed something right under their nose?

"It would be unwise to act before I am sure," Gandalf said quickly. "I have to go investigate a source of evil lurking in this forest, and if I find out that Bilbo is... perceptive to this evil, I shall take action. Until then, I'm afraid that matters could be made only worse if I force Bilbo's hand now..."

"You are _afraid_?" Thorin quoted him disbelievingly. "You are not certain?"

"I am not," Gandalf admitted, "and it scares me. Look out for Bilbo, Thorin Oakenshield. Wait for me on the outskirts of Dale, do not enter the Mountain without me. And stay on the path."

 

 

*

  


_Close. So close. We could be one again, soon. We could let Ungoliant’s children deal with the petty Dwarven problem, let the Halfling alone survive and bring us together. To be ourselves again. When the War comes and the Dragon will rise from the Mountain, we can offer him the last of the Seven. Rhovanion would burn, the singing gold of Laurelindórenan would fall in ashes and silence, Fangorn would not escape the fires - there is nothing a Dragon wouldn't do gladly for a Dwarven ring of power._

_But wouldn't it be better to wait? Continue what we have started. Let the Halfling and his Dwarves dispose of the Dragon, let them settle in their stronghold and make it ours. The armies of seven Dwarven kingdoms will be at their command and they - at ours._

_Yes, precious: we will wait. We will be one eventually; let us grow stronger in the meantime._

 

Bilbo startled awake, shivering on his bedroll, but for all that's green and good he couldn't tell what it was that had woken him. Must have been a dream, then; but the wispy threads of his dreamscape eluded him when he tried to remember. In the end he shrugged to himself and let his eyes fall closed again. Dreams were just dreams.


	9. Through the Mirkwood

Of course they didn't stay on the path. Of course.

Curses and complaints, insults and I-told-you's bobbed up and down in Bilbo's mind as he ran through the forest, his breath too short to let any of it out aloud. Just a hiss between clenched teeth every time his toes caught in the rotting wood, no more than a rattle of a heavy intake of breath whenever his knees collided with the roots that weren't there seconds ago. Bilbo ran through the shadowy forest, dodging the shadows that moved on their own, barely more than a shadow himself.

Oh sweet Mother the forest was ugly. Ugly through and through, and even uglier when filtered through the dark veil of the ring. Old, twisted, malevolent trees for miles around and Bilbo was so alone. Bilbo slowed down, trying to remember why he was running. Was he running away from something?

 

_(Catch them! Eat them! It stingssss!)_

 

Or was he pursuing someone?

 

_(Take them to the Palace!)_

 

Shadows swirled around Bilbo, strange voices called out to him from every direction. He could feel the darkness almost as the touch of a creeping hand, tangling with his hair, slithering into his guts, grasping at his soul. There and there and there too, it tugged at him to the point of ripping him apart, but mostly he felt drawn to the south. Wasn't south where the spiders came from? Bilbo couldn't remember.

There was a path beneath his feet, no more than a memory of a several pairs of boots that trampled that way not so long ago. It kept doubling and trebling in front of his eyes, laughing at him in its thin grassy voice. How long was he running? Bilbo didn't know. He must have been stung by the spiders, too, and now the poison was thickening his blood and slugging his mind. Bilbo couldn't remember, he was lost–

He stumbled and held out his hand in front of his face on reflex, the rough bark of a tree trunk right in front of him biting into his knuckles and shooting a flash of pain up his wrist and elbow. But he managed to stop himself before he hit his head too, and now stood, hair falling into his face as he slumped and bowed forward, trying to catch his breath and feeling like he was drowning with every inhale.

He didn't hit his head on the trunk but something knocked him in the face nonetheless. Bilbo opened his eyes and squinted at the spot of colour swinging right above his eyes. It was gold - a flash of light and colour in the grey world, something solid, hard and gleaming in the land of confusion where everything lacked shape and substance. Bilbo lifted a hand to his hair in wonderment and his aching fingers found a braid there, right above his hairline. He traced it to its end, and his hand closed around his courting bead.   

 

*

 

Bilbo had been through Mirkwood twice already in his youth, on his way to Erebor and then back. Every time there had been Gandalf at his side, who made for a sometimes grumpy, but altogether reasonable travelling companion, and they had taken the Old Forest Road - wide, well-kept, guarded on both sides and relatively spell-free. On both occasions they also travelled with the blessing of the Elvenking and had spent a couple of days as his personal guests.

This time round, however, Gandalf had scampered off to who-knows-where, Bilbo's current travelling companions were rarely reasonable and most of the time grumpy, they had to stumble along a barely-there path that, to Bilbo's eyes, actively strived to wind up and away from their feet, and on top of all that, they were trying to do so under the Elvenking's nose.

They couldn't light a proper fire. The Dwarves would feel better about shivering through the cold and miserable nights if they could proudly claim that they were laying their comfort on the altar of secrecy, but the plain truth was that the wood wouldn't burn. It smoked and stank a lot but its feeble flames barely licked the surface before it died out.

The mushrooms weren't edible. It was true that Bilbo had never seen their like before but he was fairly sure that anything that glowed in the dark wasn't meant for consumption.

Without a good fire, they couldn't go hunting, and the reserves of bread and cheese from Béorn quickly grew thin. Dwalin kept muttering about how the Haradhrim reputedly prepared beef meat raw and how he wouldn't be adverse to trying it out. Óin pointed out that any creature living under those sick trees had to be just as inedible as the plants. Bilbo was inclined to disagree. The Elves lived in this forest, they had to feed somehow, hadn't they? But despite pale twin dots of eyes glowing out of the bushes around them every night, reflecting the pitiful fire they kept, neither a hair or a feather of anything living crossed their path during the day.

The worst was the air. It tasted sour on the tongue and it scratched at the back of the throat, reminding Bilbo of the Fell Winter when people, having run out of firewood, resorted to burning peat, old thatches, pale fences, even old furniture or river boats - anything that would burn and give out heat. The acrid, sulphuric smoke of burning tar and varnish hung above Hobbiton for days.  

The smell and taste of air carried so many horrible memories that Bilbo tried to breathe as shallowly as he could, sipping in the air only when he absolutely had to. Soon enough a headache settled firmly behind his eyes and deep exhaustion seeped into his very bones. And the worst was that no matter how he tried, the air seemed determined to get into his lungs against his will. It filled his nose and permeated his skin, like an ink stain that gleefully soaked through every blank page of your journal when you weren’t noticing, and Bilbo hated it. He hated having to open his mouth. He hated having to take another step. He hated this entire cursed forest.

The Dwarves weren't faring any better. Plodding ahead with their heads hanging low, and dark circles under their eyes, hair matted and beards limp, faces drained and eyes bleached, they waded through the gloom and general unhappiness with about as much grace as one could expect from Dwarves. By the end of the second week, Bilbo had it up to here with the endless settling of arguments, quenching of flared tempers and acting as a damper in the crossfire of snippy remarks. Especially when he wanted nothing more than to dress down the lot off them, each and every one alike.

 

"Would you stop humming to yourself all the time? It drives me mad!"

"Says the one who kept muttering to himself all morning. Couldn't keep that trap of yours shut even if you put a sock in it."

"I was thinking! That gets a little hard with so much idiocy around!"

"Thinking! I couldn't make head or tail out of that babbling."

"And you're only humming 'cause you can't hold a thought anymore."

"Would you just shut up, the both of you?"

 

*

 

It happened in one of the more lucid moments, when the air seemed to lift and clear a little and there was even a hint of fading sunlight visible through the branches entangled high above their heads. Bilbo sat hunched over, mending the torn leg of his trousers, the Dwarves around him munching quietly at their unsatisfactory rations, when Bilbo had to, maybe for the hundredth time, brush away the hair falling into his eyes and he straightened up, groaning.

"Right. Someone give me a pair of scissors. Or a sharp knife. I can't stand it anymore."

It was Dori who stood up, producing a pair of sharp scissors from his sewing kit.

"Going to cut the entire leg off instead of mending it? Quite the courage of Hobbits, prancing around Mirkwood in shorts," he smiled wearily. Some of the less bedraggled Dwarves laughed.

"What, my trousers? No, not at all. It's my damned hair," Bilbo groused. "I've had just enough. Need to cut it, it'll be a dog's breakfast without a mirror but what can one do... What?"

Bilbo looked around, his grumbling trailing off in the face of eleven horrified expressions.

"But, Bilbo!" Ori cried, high-pitched and completely nonsensically. Bilbo could swear the lad's eyes were welling up.

"Is it this forest? There's no need to feel ashamed, you're doing better than some of us," Bofur hurried to add with anxiousness that baffled Bilbo even more.

"Is it something Thorin said?" asked Balin, and there was concern mixed with exasperation in his voice that Bilbo knew well enough. He was about to open his mouth to ask what it might be that Thorin could have said and what was all the fuss about when Dwalin turned to Thorin with narrowed eyes:

"If I find out you've revoked the courtship–"

"What?" Bilbo sputtered out at the same time that Thorin exclaimed: "No!"

"Then why is he shamed?" Dwalin demanded. "He can't be grieving, we've been together an on our own for weeks and nobody'd died!"

"Shamed? I'm not ashamed of anything! I just need to cut my hair!" Bilbo raised his voice over the gathering racket.

Well. There was the staring again.

"But that's the... same?" Ori volunteered after a moment of silence, suddenly unsure.

Bilbo looked around him, taking in the anxious, concerned, honest and well-meaning faces of his friends, as well as the agonized expression of near-horror on the face of his intended, and then he closed his eyes tightly and bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing.

"It's the same for Dwarves, I presume," he said when he was sure he wouldn't offend anyone with an untimely fit of laughter over cultural differences.

The Dwarves looked at one another and slowly, they relaxed back. "You mean that Hobbits cut their hair? Like Men do?" inquired Dori.

"That's it," Bilbo nodded. "What, did you think my hair was this short by nature?"

"Well, you don't have any beard," Dwalin pointed out. "And those tufts on your feet aren't very long either." Several others nodded as if that was a completely reasonable assumption.

"Insult my feet hair again and I'll shave you in your sleep, see if I don't," Bilbo warned him. "My feet hair is quite the respectable length. Moreover, if I had some Stoor blood in me, I'd be able to grow a beard. At least such one like Ori's got," he pointed to the admittedly thin cover of the scribe's chin. He was rather exaggerating, even full-blooded Stoors couldn't grow more than a down on their cheeks, but he kept that fact to himself.

"Anyway, my hair keeps getting into my eyes, so if you won't mind looking the other way to protect your delicate sensibilities while I commit this outrageous blasphemy and cut _my own Hobbit hair_ –"

"I believe I have a solution that would help both your eyes and our feelings," Thorin said at last, stepping forth and gently taking the scissors away from Bilbo.

"It is high time I gave you my second courting gift, after all," Thorin said, quietly, while his fingers worked deftly through the curls above Bilbo's hairline. Some of them slipped from his hold and he had to go back a bit and correct his work several times but not a word of complaint made it past the Dwarf's lips. _Lesson learned_ , Bilbo thought to himself fondly, the memory of Thorin's impatience and lack of self-control in front of the entire Ereborean council now softened with time into an episode he remembered more with amusement than with humiliation, and in turn he held patiently and didn't even wince at some of the sharper tugs on his hair roots.

"Something of gold?" Bilbo asked under his breath. "Something made by your own hands?"

A wry smile was enough of an answer. "It is true that we haven't passed any forges lately," Thorin admitted, "and I am a blacksmith, not a jeweller. But this–" he held up a little golden object, "–this I could make."

Bilbo took the little thing and rolled it in between his fingertips. On closer look, he could see that it indeed wasn't an ordinary bead.

"You made it out of a coin?" he asked, his fingers tracing a part of the pattern that was once the head of a golden coin. A hole had been punched through the centre, and the outer edge of the coin was split with five symmetrical dents into five parts that had been bent and curled up like a blossoming bud of an apple tree.

"One of those my sister had sewn into the lining of my coat, for providence's sake," Thorin nodded. Bilbo huffed out a tiny laugh. No wonder that furry thing was so damn heavy. "It was what little we saved from the great wealth of Erebor."

"Are these..." Bilbo inspected the broken pattern, "... ravens? Oh, I remember. The raven crown your grandfather wore."

"You have good memory," Thorin said, squeezing his hand. "Ravens stand for Erebor. On the other side there is a stylised bell, the symbol of Dale. The city was famous for the sound of bells that carried across the lake... this coin was a symbol of the monetary union between our cities, as well as of our alliance."

Thorin finished the braid and threaded its end through the hole in the bead, pressing the top part of the leaves together and thus fixing it in place, making sure that the bead won't slip. Bilbo carefully felt along his hairline, finding a rather neat braid there, running above his brow and down on one side of his face. It was true that no hair was falling into his field of vision anymore but he was also fairly sure that he looked ridiculous. Then he looked around.

Ori was tearing up again, but this time with emotion, Bombur wore a sappy smile that he usually developed when thinking of his wife, and Dwalin was actually studiously looking away and fighting a blush. Bilbo decided that looking a bit like a fool was small a price for making his friends happy in the middle of this horrible forest, even for a little while.

As for Thorin, in the depths of his eyes as he looked at his gift nestled in Bilbo's curls, Bilbo could see a fire that no foul air, no enchanted water and no gloomy dusk could ever quench. He gave Thorin a chaste kiss, audience be damned - and if he lingered with the touch of lips on lips longer than propriety allowed, it could be blamed at the sluggishness of movements everyone experienced around here, right? Then he assumed his best formal expression and said:

"I approve of your second gift, Thorin Oakenshield."

 

*

 

Bilbo's hand closed around his courting bead, the hard edges of slits where a coin was shaped into a blossom nearly cutting through the skin of his palm, and he could feel his mind clearing with the grounding pain. The bead was solid and real, once a symbol of cooperation and goodwill between Men and Dwarves and now a token of another union, between a Dwarf and a Hobbit. It clung to the end of his braid securely, one little point of certainty in the sea of conflicting sensations.

Bilbo could feel his senses sharpening, his purpose returning. The voices whispering at the edge of his hearing fell silent. His breath was even and his panic was gone, having washed over him in a wave that stripped him of everything useless and left behind nothing but the pure steel of his core, steel hammered in terror to become fearless.

Bilbo ran ahead and followed his Dwarves into the palace of Woodland Elves.

 

*

 

Thorin stood in front of the pompous Elven throne, spider webs still tangled in his hair and his boots wet from the streams the Elves had unceremoniously dragged them through, and shouted abuse at the Elvenking for all his tree-hugging, squirrel-eating, deer-shagging Kingdom to hear.

That weasel Thranduil. No honour to speak of and always ready to bargain, his greed for treasure worse than that of some lowly Dwarven mercenary. Never one to help just for the sake of it, no! Always demanding a reward, a payment, a deal.

Well, Thranduil could make deals with the Dragon, as far as Thorin was concerned.

Even though at one point - when they dragged him in front of the throne and dropped him off like a piece of garbage - Thorin almost wavered. Durin's Day was nigh. They could never make it out of the forest without the Elves' blessing. His Company was starving. Bilbo was lost somewhere out there, at the mercy of spiders... No, Thorin mentally corrected himself. Bilbo was the one who showed no mercy towards that eight-legged filth, his tiny sword slicing through the carapaces with vengeance - perhaps born of desperation but no less deadly. When he freed the Dwarves from their venomous trap and the spiders came back, raining down from the trees, Bilbo was there, at Thorin's side. And then the Elves finally decided to clean their own mess and kill the spiders - and Bilbo was there no more. But surely the Hobbit was all right. He had to be…

But then, just as Thranduil was about to finish his honey-tongued proposition, Thorin felt something. A sigh of air at his ear, a whisper of touch at the back of his hand, so quick that it was gone before he could flinch in reaction.  

There was no one around him close enough to touch. No one he could see.

It was incredible - but not impossible, no. Hadn't he called Bilbo the Wizard's apprentice all those years ago? Whatever it was, it was enough to make Thorin stop worrying. He smirked, turned around and told the Elvenking exactly what he thought of him.

 

*

 

Seventeen years ago, the Palace of the Woodland Realm failed to leave a good impression on Bilbo. Even then, at his easily excitable age of thirty-tree, he had thought the place cold and unwelcoming, polite only to the extent of decorum and with a creepy sense of hostility even towards its own people. For Bilbo wasn't deaf or blind and could tell the difference between the Sindar nobility and the common folk, rather earthbound and perhaps even a bit savage Silvan Elves that nonetheless seemed more likeable to Bilbo than the aloof King. Those draughty caverns and underground halls didn't look like something those simple and warm-blooded people would choose for themselves, especially when they loved nothing more than a free hunt in the forest, a merry gathering around a roaring fire with venison on the spit and a barrel of wine and gazing upon the stars under the open sky.

Bilbo saw and heard what transpired in the throne room. He had seen the horrendous scarring on the King's face, saw it disappear again behind the glamour. He wondered if it wasn't another type of Dragon that wounded and bespelled King Thranduil: an ice drake, a flightless wyrm with scales crusted with snow and freezing everything its breath touched.

It would certainly explain the King's coldness, and his love for shiny things.

Bilbo followed his unwitting host through the Palace. He listened and observed. He noticed how the King moved when he talked to someone; how he kept his head and body turned away, chin lifted, never gazing directly at the person speaking to him - even if it was his own son.

Bilbo watched Thranduil and Legolas from the shadows, exchanging quick words. He noticed a familiarly shaped scabbard on the back of the young prince. Neither the simple leather one Bilbo once crafted with his own clumsy skills, nor the gaudy and pretentious one Thrór had commissioned instead, which was a small consolation. Bilbo had to admit that _Orcrist_ looked well on the tall and lithe Elf, its elegant lines complimenting the natural grace of his movements. He wondered if Legolas had been told exactly how his father came by a Gondolin blade.

Bilbo heard the King ordering wine, and a plan hatched in his head. But first, he had to retrieve something. Because there was no way in Mirkwood Bilbo was about to let Thranduil bereave Thorin of _two_ swords.

The armoury where the Elves had stored the confiscated Dwarven weapons was in a secluded part of the Palace, closer to the private rooms of the royalty and without any special guard. It was understandable as one would have had to get past many guard posts just to get through the royal quarters. Which was exactly what Bilbo did. Getting ahold of Deathless and a selection of daggers (Dwalin was going to yell at him for leaving Grasper and Keeper behind and Glóin was probably going to weep for his family heirloom axes but Bilbo really couldn't carry much without the danger of giving himself away) was a little tricky, for he had to pull off his ring and put it on again after he had the weapons tucked away on his person. He fortunately made that discovery of how exactly the invisibility worked early on, because nothing would be more of a giveaway if someone happened to notice swords inexplicably flying at a walking pace through the corridors.

No one had seen him entering or leaving the armoury. Bilbo gratefully caressed the little ring put snugly on his finger. Such a handy trinket. This burgling business was child's play with such an asset. He was on his way back to the dungeons, treading softly on the smooth paved floor, when his ears caught a swift tempo of footfalls approaching from behind.

Caught in the rather narrow corridor, Bilbo flattened himself against the wall, right under a hook where a lantern hung, its light pooling around in an undisturbed half-circle. He knew he didn't cast a shadow when wearing the ring and mentally congratulated himself on this little cleverness: anyone searching for intruders would focus on shadowed corners, dimly-lit hallways: not the brightest spot all around.

Prince Legolas strode through the corridor, his eyes narrowed and searching, and Bilbo held his breath. The young Prince had probably heard Bilbo's footsteps, careful as the Hobbit was, or perhaps he’d noticed the disappearance of some weapons from the armoury. Bilbo let the Elf pass by and stole after him, matching Legolas step for step and covering his own footfalls in the echo of the Prince's own tread.

The corridor opened into a cavernous hall with many entrances. Bilbo remembered it from his way hence; it must have served as a ball room. The walls were panelled and lined with mirrors, and wasn't it a fright to walk past one and not see one's own reflection. The polygon shape of the room, and its emptiness, split and echoed sounds in unusual ways. Bilbo lingered behind, waiting for the Prince to choose an exit and disappear so he could carry on to the dungeons, but suddenly the Prince stopped and turned his head right to the corridor where Bilbo was still hiding.

"I can hear you breathing, thief. You can't fool me like you did my father."

Bilbo held his breath, frozen, and then carefully let it out through his mouth. So the Prince knew about him - and said nothing. Why? Did he want to catch the thief on his own? Why wouldn't he tell his father that their conversation was being overheard? Perhaps if he wanted to shelter him from something…

Bilbo took a couple of silent steps to the side and then he turned, putting his mouth near the wall and speaking directly into it.

"I noticed he listens with his right ear turned to the person he speaks with. The dragonfire cost him hearing on his left side, did it not?"

Just as he hoped, the wall carried the sound around the room and Legolas whipped around, facing now in the opposite direction.

"At least you know why my father cannot allow your Dwarves to rouse another Dragon!"

"Maybe, maybe not," Bilbo sing-sang, speaking into yet another corner and slowly making Legolas lose his temper. The Elf couldn't pinpoint where the intruder's voice was coming from, and Bilbo could see how angry it was making him.

"What the Dwarves want to do in their mountain is their business," Bilbo added. "My business is with you, Prince Legolas."

Legolas folded his arms and forced himself to stay calm. "You are familiar with my name but I have yet to hear yours."

Bilbo grinned to himself. This was a dangerous game, though the odds of anyone coming in were low; still he was dallying their escape and giving their enemy a chance to catch him. And yet he couldn't help but play it a little longer. The disadvantage of his small stature and weak fighting skills meant nothing when he was invisible, this was simply his wits against the wits of the Elves. And Bilbo longed to teach them a lesson.

"I go by many names," he said, still on the move, changing the direction of his voice in unpredictable patterns. "I am called _bâhu khazâd_ , dwarf-friend, and _elvellon_ , elf-friend, and I am the guest of Eagles. I am luck wearer and riddle maker, the web-cutter and thief in the shadows, and I came to tell you that you carry something you have no right to call yours."

Legolas looked puzzled, trying to make sense of Bilbo's riddles, and in the end he only spat: "Speak clearly, thief!"

"That sword you carry, _Orcrist_ is its name. A gift from your father, I imagine. Have you ever asked him how did he come to such a fine blade?"

"Do you call us undeserving?" Legolas said heatedly. "My father fought in the War of Wrath alongside the finest of warriors!"

"That blade survived the Fall of Gondolin! It was forged to slay Balrogs, Ecthelion of the Fountain made it into a menace of thousands of Orcs, and you waste it on cutting spider legs!"

"How do you know these things?" asked Legolas, visibly taken aback.

"It is of no bearing how I know them," Bilbo said dismissively. "It is more interesting how much you do not know. You were not here when the Dragon descended upon Dale and Erebor, were you?"

"No," the young Prince said, curiosity making him complacent in his answers. "I was visiting my woodland kin in Lothlórien."

"I see your father shelters you from a lot," Bilbo said thoughtfully and didn't miss the involuntary flinch of Legolas' shoulders. "So you may not know that when the Dwarves of Erebor, wounded, robbed of home, mourning many dead and desolate, turned West, your noble father had _traded_ with them for passage through his lands. He took this sword from Thorin as a payment for something that _any_ decent person would give for free. When had the King of the Woodland Realm turned into a common thieving magpie?"

"It is not theft, if Thorin agreed," Legolas said in a low voice.

"He had his starving people behind his back. Do you think he had much choice?"

Legolas stood silently for a while, swallowing and listening, colour rising on his cheeks. He had lost any idea where Bilbo could be hiding long ago, and now he probably couldn't hear much over the rush of blood from his pounding heart.

"Since you seem to know so much of what transpired in these parts years ago, maybe you shouldn't forget that the Dwarves of Erebor robbed us first!" he exploded at last.

Oh, so Legolas admitted that his father wasn't above robbery. Bilbo grinned again. Taunting this naïve, sheltered Princeling was simply too enjoyable.

"Oh, I heard," he drawled. "Gems of pure starlight. King Thrór wasn't satisfied with the payment and so he withheld them."

"Blinded by his Dwarven greed, he chose to raise a feud over them," Legolas accused.

"And wasn't your father blinded as well, by his want?"

Legolas spun around, crying out nowhere in particular: "What do you mean? Speak your mind or leave me!"

"Peace, O Prince," Bilbo cooed. "I merely want you to consider a few things and then draw your own conclusion. Tell me, do you know how many hours of travel lie between the edges of Mirkwood and Erebor?"

"I see no point in your question."

"We'll get there," Bilbo said soothingly. "How many?"

Legolas gritted his teeth but in the end he replied with admirable obedience: "A full day on both boat and foot; quicker if you ride on land, slower if you have no boat and are to go around the Long Lake."

"Very well," Bilbo praised him. "And how long does it take to muster an army?"

"Are you a spy?" Legolas asked and then, surprisingly, he laughed. "Of course you are, you hide in shadows and speak in riddles. I won't answer you. I shouldn't be talking to you at all."

"I will answer for you, O Prince," Bilbo said. "By no means does it take any less than a full day to muster an army in Mirkwood and move it to Erebor. And yet, mere hours after the Dragon came, while Dale was still burning and the fight inside Erebor still raging, while the survivors were still streaming out of the Mountain on their flight from the beast making its lair in their halls, your father appeared in front of Erebor leading a host of Elven warriors, ready for battle. Only when he saw the broken gates and the smoke coming from inside the Mountain, he turned away his face and his host and marched back to the forest."

The walls around the ballroom seemed to tremble with the echo of Bilbo's tale. Legolas wasn't facing him at the moment but in one of the mirrors Bilbo could see his eyes, wide and disbelieving in a face slowly draining of colour.

"How... It couldn't..." he stammered.

"Many of the Dwarves had seen him that day, it's beyond doubt. Tell me, Prince: how did he get there so quickly?"

Legolas was silent for a long while and Bilbo could see him connecting the dots. "A foreboding - a warning sign of the Dragon's coming–" he offered at last. Bilbo could see even the Prince himself didn't believe his own words.

"That would be an admirable foresight. I think that the answer is a far simpler one. Your father was on his way to attack Erebor, to bring war on his neighbour and sworn ally, to retrieve his gems by force. Only after he came there, he saw that the Dragon had done the dirty work for him. That's why you'd been sent to Lothlórien, Greenleaf. Your father wanted to spare you war. The Dwarves never made the connection: they were driven out of home, confused, despairing. They saw their ally turning back and thought he was simply refusing them help. But really, all it needs is just a bit of thinking, don't you say?"

Some part of Bilbo almost pitied the young Elf. Legolas stood there, head bowed, obviously having given up on catching the bodiless voice, and then he wrapped his arms around himself and said quietly:

"I will not trust shapeless words from a shadowless thief."

"I do not ask for your trust, Elfling."

Legolas frowned and then startled. He must have remembered the beginning of their strange conversation.

"So is it the sword you want?" He unbuckled _Orcrist_ from its strapping across his back and threw it on the ground. "Take it. You're going to free the Dwarves, I can see it, and I will not hinder you. You will leave this forest and never return."

Bilbo considered it for a while. It was true that he was very much miffed when he learned the fate of his first courting gift - but it was also true that the sword itself was serving as a courting gift only in name, not in meaning. Thorin had since then acquired a new sword, a good Dwarven sword, and he loved it for the memory of his sister's husband who forged it as a marriage price and then died in battle protecting Thorin's younger brother.

And Legolas was stubborn and naïve, but had an open mind and the potential to be wiser than Thranduil. His father's prejudices hadn't spoiled him yet, and he wasn't deaf to the calling of the world beyond Mirkwood's borders.

"Keep it as a gift, Prince Legolas," Bilbo said, this time not bothering to conceal his position. The grey Elven eyes snapped up to where he stood but Legolas made no move to catch him. He had meant it when he said that he would not hinder their escape. When Bilbo left the ballroom, Legolas didn't follow him.

Yes, there was still a hope for peace between the two Kingdoms, Bilbo mused. As long as you didn't leave their respective Kings in charge of negotiating it.

 

*

 

After the reunion, after the wheedling and haggling and ultimate whispered shouting, after desperately clutching the side of a barrel and nearly drowning in the rapids of the forest river, and finally, after crawling onto the wonderfully solid ground of the shore, Bilbo thought that the string of his titles should be definitely expanded to include the name of Barrel-rider.


	10. In Lake Town

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the Christmas mini-hiatus! Here, have a double-length chapter as a compensation:)

After all the hassle Bilbo had gone through to get the Company to stop calling him 'Master Baggins', he would actually have chosen it over what the Company was calling him now.

"Cursed halfling!" Dwalin groaned, crawling out of his barrel and spitting out what looked like half of the Forest River flow.

"What kind of hare-brained plan was that, you Shire nitwit?" Dori grumbled, trying at once to shake water out of his ears and help Ori who didn't seem to have the strength to get out of his barrel on his own.

The last of the Dwarves left the much-hated barrels in the shallow of a little bay not far from the river gate where the current naturally brought them and they soon joined in, voicing loudly and without restraint their complaints about being bruised, battered, wet, hungry, and cold.

Bilbo coughed out his share of river water, wrung the water out of the hair at the back of his head and decided he'd had enough.

"Well, are you free or are you still locked in?" he asked, feeling rather put-out. He hadn't had the comfort of a full meal like the Dwarves had - whatever it could be said about Elves, they weren't savages to torment their prisoners with starvation - and he'd spent his time in the Palace lurking around in the half-world that felt like closing on him in search for his weak spots, trying - and succeeding - to come up with a plan of escape, and decidedly not sleeping on a passable bed like some of the Dwarves did.

"If you want to feel better, and warmer, not to mention actually getting on with this mad quest of yours, you better help me collect the barrels and perhaps even swallow down your whining before it attracts the sentries and unmakes all my hard work!"

Grumbling and muttering into their wet beards the Dwarves nevertheless set to work, dragging up the few barrels that hadn’t  already been swept aground by the current in the little bay eaten into the north bank. Higher on the shore, there was a little hut half-covered by trees. Here, the Elves would normally collect the barrels expelled from the Palace, make them into a raft and steer them down to Lake-town but as nothing of that kind was scheduled for today, the guarding post was unmanned. Exactly as Bilbo had counted on.

Bilbo went as far as scouting the inside of the hut. The find of some waybread and a few satchels of dried fruit was certainly welcome but the Hobbit was more pleased with his loot of a pair of cloaks knitted from warm grey wool - the spare set of what the rafters probably wore.

When he came back to the shore, he found the Dwarves already in full squabble. Bilbo sighed and felt a belated compassion towards the old tutor of reading and penning in the school in Michel Delving who went prematurely grey from facing a bunch of wild Hobbit fauntlings every year.

"I'm the eldest of you, my bones have the right to ache with cold!" That was Óin.

"How come that Thorin got back his sword  _ and _ his coat while we're trampling around half-naked and with naught but a knife?" And that was Glóin.

"I saved what I could!" Bilbo said, putting his hands on his hips. "And with good reasons for every item."

"Leave off, you two," said Dwalin, and Bilbo would have been grateful to him for coming to his aid if the Dwarf hadn't added next: "After all, none of us could repay our burglar his favours the way Thorin can."

Thorin's fist connected squarely with Dwalin's jaw before Bilbo could as much as gape in outrage, and though Thorin was never one for pulling his punches, the burly warrior barely swayed. He rubbed his chin, grinning unrepentantly, but kept his mouth shut under the force of Thorin's glare.

"Would you just stop this!" Bilbo cried out in exasperation. "In case you've all completely forgotten to make plans beyond the next meal and the next day, we still have a Mountain to reach, and for that, we will need the help of Lake-men. And forgive me for thinking that our attempts at negotiating would come across far better with our leader actually looking the part of a majestic Dwarven king instead that of a drowned rat! Besides, I only saved Thorin's coat because I knew there's money sewn into it, money we're going to sorely need! And if you have any further objections to my favouritism, I advise you to marry your own Hobbit burglar to keep your sorry Dwarven arses out of trouble!"

Bilbo ran out of breath and out of steam and the Dwarves, looking somewhat chastised, finally raised the important question.

"So what next?"

Appeased - not by much, but he'd take what he could - Bilbo sat down to explain his plan.

The conversations he had overheard in the Palace had yielded some vital bits of information. Bilbo now knew that the river banks were closely guarded, especially downstream, as the Forest River was now one of the last roads remaining in use for trade with the Lake-men. The summer in these parts had been exceptionally rainy and the marches, fed by floods, had swallowed many paths that once lead east from Mirkwood. The eastern end of the Elfin path that Béorn showed them was gone entirely, and indeed it was a doubtful luck that the Dwarves got lost in the forest before even covering the half of it.

"The river is our only safe road," Bilbo told the Dwarves, "but we cannot sail down it unnoticed. My plan goes as follows: we make a raft of the barrels as the Elves would, and the four most slender of us will disguise themselves as the rafters."

"Four?" Ori asked.

"We've got two cloaks," Bilbo nodded. "Elven size. Their folds will cover your bulk and their hoods will hide your beards but I fear no Elven guard would be fooled by a Dwarf-sized rafter trailing half of the coat behind them like a dress with train. I've seen you fooling around in Rivendell; don't tell me you can't last out a few hours of a piggyback ride."

The Dwarves nodded thoughtfully, already sizing up one another to determine which ones had the dubious honour of being the most 'weed-eater-like' thin. Soon enough, Ori was chosen to sit on his brother Nori's shoulders and Bofur volunteered to carry Bilbo - "In case there was any talking needed to be done, as you're the only one here who speaks that damned Elven gibberish."

"And what about the others?" asked Balin with growing suspicion.

"Well, the others," Bilbo grinned widely and without remorse, "they have to hide back in the barrels, of course."

 

*

 

In the end, no talking was needed. They were called upon from the woods a few times as they steered their raft with poles round the river bends and a hand lifted in greeting was all it took to satisfy the patrols. They were probably used to the morose mood of Elves tasked with raft duty, forced to leave their Forest and haggle with the Lake-men about prices, tolls, and who should be responsible for the up-keep of the river banks.

Once on the wide lake and no longer in the territory of the Elvenking, they quickly discarded their disguise. Grumpy and stiff-legged Dwarves scrambled out of their barrels and this time, Bilbo stuffed their mouths with the food he’d found in the hut as soon as they opened them to badmouth him again.

The steering poles could no longer reach the bottom of the lake but, as Bifur pointed out, there was a weak but steady current along the shores that had the raft slowly drifting towards a wide bay partly sheltered by a stony pier. Several boats and barges were berthed in the port and a long wooden bridge, stretched out across the length of it, connected the land road with the water-enclosed town.

"It looks smaller and gloomier than I remember," Bilbo observed and a shudder ran down his spine that had nothing to do with the evening chill. He never liked the town, perching above the ever-rippling waters like a plump of ducks. Too far from solid ground for any Hobbit's comfort. Now some parts of the town showed signs of abandonment and disuse - and yet, on more careful inspection, Bilbo could spot a candle-lit window here and there in those seemingly empty houses, mouldering and crooked but inhabited nonetheless. It was as if the people living there hadn't either the means or the will to upkeep their homes.

"Can't expect much cheer in a settlement so close to a dragon lair," Bofur remarked, nodding ominously towards the Mountain with a Khuzdul curse muttered under his beard.

"I wonder why they've stayed at all," Bilbo thought aloud. "This place is literally a few flaps of dragon wings away from the Mountain, you can see the charred ruins of Dale even from here and yet after seventeen years, the people still live here."

"Can't be much of a life - more like scratching out a living," Dori considered.

"Such is the nature of Men," Óin nodded sagely. "Short life, short memory. The Dragon hasn't been seen out of the Mountain ever since he claimed it and already it's as if the beast was only a tale designed to scare children into an early bedtime."

That, Bilbo found hard to believe. "Don't tell me that a mere seventeen years was enough for them to forget their fear. We Hobbits are often accused of being careless and callow but we still take care to stock our pantries full every autumn even though the last Fell Winter was more than twenty years ago."

"It's not as much fear as it is adaptation," Balin said. "The life of Men is short, aye, but that means they learn quickly to live with whatever they're given. They can live with a Dragon for a neighbour as long as his existence is only a shadow on the horizon, not an immediate threat."

"I think it's a bit of both - short memory and obstinate resilience," Bombur put in. "I remember a village that in the olden days lay further down the River Running. Every spring, the river would swell with thawing snow and flood the bottomlands, and the bogs would last into the late summer before the water withdrew. But the villagers wanted more land for fields and gardens, so they built a barrage and an embankment of laid stone to keep the river in its bed and built new houses and laid out gardens in what was once nothing but water meadows. But then after one winter, harsher than before, the thawing came too quickly. The dams broke and the river flooded the entire settlement."

"I remember that," Óin nodded. "Must have been that Fell Winter you'd mentioned, Bilbo. Awful weather, that year."

"And what happened to the villagers?" Bilbo asked, fascinated.

"They wept," Bombur replied, "and cursed the river for taking their homes. Mourned the loss of land that had been theirs for a mere three decades, and before that had belonged to the river for thousands of years. And the next autumn, they went and rebuilt the dams, making them stronger."

"And the Lake-men of today, they live here, and every year at Yuletide they toast themselves to another year of Dragon sleep," Bofur grimaced.

_ Might be in for a nasty surprise this year, come Durin's Day, _ Bilbo thought to himself.

Their raft ran ashore close to the bridge just as night fell. "Well, that's that, and what next?" they asked Bilbo.

Bilbo realised that this question had gained some notoriety lately. "What comes next?" Thorin had asked when Bilbo freed him from his cell; and from then on, Bilbo had acted as the actual leader of the Company. It was Bilbo's plan they followed with the raft, and Thorin hadn't questioned it once, restricting himself only to silencing the whining of others. It looked as if the Dwarves had finally learnt to rely on Bilbo's judgement. That knowledge sat with Bilbo a bit tentatively at first but it quickly grew into warm satisfaction.  _ It is as it should be _ , he thought,  _ I am the most reasonable of them anyway. _

 

*

 

Whatever it was - Thorin's rich fur coat, the broadsword proudly displayed on his back, his Durin beads polished to a shine or simply his imposing personality and grandness of his speech - had moved the citizens of Lake-town into accepting them and tipped the scales from being nearly thrown into a rotting jail cell by the guards to being given an ostentatious feast in their honour by the Mistress.

Bilbo remembered the Woman as being moderately kind, if a bit aloof. But now he soon found that seventeen years of living on the scraps of former glory - and managing a town that had to deal with a considerable exodus and the accommodation of Dale survivors at the same time - had made her less compassionate and more of an opportunist. She didn't care for the well-being of her people anymore; only for hers alone.

The Dwarves put together what they had. Thorin unstitched the rest of the hidden seam in the lining of his coat to produce heavy gold coin - only a handful, but it still brought a glaze of nostalgia over the eyes of elder Dwarves who eyed the coins of Erebor and caressed their beards with profound sighing. Then Glóin stepped forward and with a little sheepish smile he pulled a satchel of silver coins out of the bush of his beard. Bilbo chuckled: the intricacy of Glóin's beard braiding had a reason, after all. Bombur then uncoiled his ginger garland of a beard to reveal some delicate golden chains ("My good wife's dowry. She gave it to me for the worst times,") and after a minute hesitation, Thorin parted with his sapphire ring. For all that, the Mistress agreed to give them proper clothing, provisions, boats, and a sword each - though the weapons turned out to be cheap and ill-kept. That, and a promise of protection against any claims from the Woodland realm was everything Thorin and Balin were able to haggle out of that Woman, and in the end they had joined the feast with expressions sourer than the wine served on the tables.

 

*

 

The feast progressed splendidly, at least to Bilbo's eyes. Food was cleared off the tables quicker than the kitchen helpers managed to lay it out; and that was, according to Hobbit standards, a sign of a good party. On second thought, it could also be that most of the people here were rarely met with a filling meal these days, and that thought sobered Bilbo in a rather uncomfortable way.

His throat felt scratchy and he could feel the beginning of a headache building behind his eyes. Going down with a cold, most probably. Bilbo gathered his wine cup and made way along the walls of the room, sidestepping the Men, who weren't used to looking out for him, and the Dwarves, who were quickly becoming too sloshed to remember to do so, and finally arrived at the big tiled stove in the corner of the room. It hummed with the fire built inside, the tiles too hot to touch, and Bilbo stretched up, straining on his tiptoes and trying to put his cup on top of it without burning the hair off his feet–

"Here, Master Hobbit," a gentle voice said behind him just as long fingers pried the cup from his hand, putting it where he wanted it to go, and another firm hand steadied his shoulders. "Before you hurt yourself unnecessarily."

"Oh – thank you very much," Bilbo stuttered, a bit embarrassed. He turned around and tilted his head back to squint at the amused expression on the face of a Woman - not young but not old either and yet with her face marred with lines that on closer look spoke of more grief than her years warranted. She sat down on the bench from where she got up to help him and Bilbo noticed that she put a protective arm around a young man, not even out of his tweens, judging by the sparse down on his cheeks that valiantly pretended to be a beard.  He had the Woman's nose, a grimness to the draw of his brows that looked unusual on a lad of his age and a defiant set to his chin. Bilbo didn't know what had he done to deserve such scorn in the lad's eyes but it made him stop right in his tracks.

"I just wanted to warm it up a bit," Bilbo explained. "My throat hurts too much for cold wine."

"At least you've got wine," the lad spat, the scorn in him turning into downright enmity.

"Bard!" the Woman - by no mistake his mother - raised her voice in chiding. "Forgive my son, Master Hobbit–"

"No, it's fine," Bilbo said hastily. "He's right, isn't he?" For the first time, Bilbo truly looked at the table where this Woman, her son, and a handful of other people sat. The shabbiest table in the room, in the farthest corner from the head table of the Mistress, with no wine and just a watered down ale for drink, and the food there was just boiled bones pulled out of broth and mashed potatoes that Bilbo was sure were meant for pigs. The clothes of these people had seen better days, their backs were bent and hands calloused with hard work, and they huddled together against the scoffing glances of the rest of the Lake-men like out-casts.

"Well," Bilbo nodded to himself, "this is obviously a problem running deeper and for a longer time than I can even imagine, but I was hired to be a burglar and burglar's solutions are temporary by default. So I'm going to do just that."

When he got back to the table, this time using his size to his advantage - most Men thought him just a boy hired to work in the kitchens - and unloaded the spoils of his little raid, he was met with a considerably warmer welcome.

"You are a better guest than our Mistress is a host," the Woman said, handing him down his now nearly boiling cup and making a place for him on the bench.

"Our Mistress never'd been a good host in the first place," the lad - Bard - mumbled around a mouthful of stuffed chicken.

Bilbo waved it off. "It's you who has been kind to me," he said. "Not many of the Big Folk know us well enough to call us by our proper name." Indeed, it'd been refreshing not to be addressed as a Halfling for a change.

The Woman smiled. "It's been years since we last saw you but it was hard to forget a Hobbit on this side of the Mountains."

Bilbo perked up in surprise. "You remember me?" Then he looked properly at her son - that rich colour of his hair, that fiery spark in those deep brown eyes, that square shape of his jaw - and finally the dots started connecting.

"You're Lord Girion's wife!" Bilbo exhaled. "Forgive me, my lady, I should've seen it sooner. Your son has his father's bearing."

"He has," the Woman nodded, the smile flitting over her face at once proud and sad. "And there's nothing to forgive. My husband was the one to have any dealings with you, and Bard here wasn't a twinkle in his father's eye when you'd last been to Dale."

Bilbo lowered his voice and fidgeted on his seat. "What happened, my lady? I know of the destruction of your city, but this–" he gestured at the poor and secluded table, at the unsavoury food, at their threadbare clothes... the meaning of his unfinished question clear.

The Woman sighed. "No more 'your lady', please. Call me Astrid." Bilbo saw Bard shuffle closer to his mother, an almost unconscious protective gesture.

"When the Dragon came, my Girion tried everything to kill that beast. Even as Smaug destroyed our city, he stood amidst the ruins and shot arrow after an arrow out of the Dwarven windlance built for our protection... but alas, both Dwarven craft and Girion's marksmanship failed us that day. Not a single black arrow was left and the Dragon only suffered a scratch," Astrid said.

"Girion fell with his city, and I saved naught but mine and Bard's life when I escaped, Bard but a babe in my arms. Many of our people died in the flames and devastation. Those few who survived turned to Lake-town for help."

Bilbo drew in a sharp breath. "And this is how they treated you in your time of need?"

"Most of them have met a more graceful welcome," Astrid said. "It's just me and my kin that bear the blame for Girion's failure."

"If only my father's aim was better," Bard pronounced as if quoting someone. "If he spared his arrows better, if his last shot found its mark and hadn't only loosened a scale... believe me, master Hobbit, that the people here were only too ready to fish for reasons why not to give us more than a crumbling house scheduled for demolition and a rotten barge to earn our keep."

"It's still a home, Bard," his mother reminded him gently, "and a honest living." Then she turned to Bilbo and the gentleness in her eyes turned to steel.

"A home and a living that your Dwarves are putting at stake, master Hobbit. 'The bells shall ring in gladness', the prophesy says, but there are no more bell towers standing in Dale and 'the lake will shine and burn', if you wake that beast, and who then will we turn to? To the Elves? They care for nothing beyond their trees. To the Dwarves? For all I see they would be burned first."

Bilbo swallowed. "I do not have the foresight of Elves, lady Astrid. But I can give you a honest promise that I will do everything in my power to prevent any harm happening to you, and should it come to the worst, then I'm sure the Dwarves will compensate every loss tenfold. Thorin..." Bilbo bit his tongue and corrected himself, "King Thorin wouldn't turn his back on refugees. He'd walked many a mile in your shoes, trust me." 

"Your manners and disposition are easy to trust," Astrid remarked, "so for now I shall hold you to your promise."

Bilbo sipped on his wine and thought a bit desperately on how on the good green earth he was going to steal from a Dragon without waking him. Also, had he now just given his word for Thorin's honour? Had he basically spoken as the leader of their quest? Oh bollocks. The wine must have been stronger than it tasted.   

 

*

 

The cold must have been playing with his temperature because as the evening grew into the night, Bilbo found himself shivering and thinking of a soft bed in the rooms appointed to them. At the same time, the wine must have gone to his head. His senses felt a bit fuzzy, his vision was pleasantly gold-tinged, and when his gaze fell upon Thorin across the length of the room, Bilbo could feel something warm unfurl and nestle comfortably in his guts. It took him a few moment to realise what that was.

Thorin looked magnificent. The misery of Mirkwood long shaken off, his hair shining under the great chandelier, face still guarded and imperious, just his eyes sparkling with more than one cup of wine. Bilbo was seized with sudden want that coiled like a hot wire around his heart. Oh how he wanted Thorin tonight.

Thorin looked up from his conversation and caught Bilbo's eye. Not so long ago - weeks, at most? - Bilbo would have blushed with embarrassment to be caught looking at his soulmate like this. But now he thought nothing of the blush, the colour of it warming his face to match the heat of his thoughts, and held the gaze. Thorin gave him a small smile and everything else ceased to exist for a while - nothing but the warmth of affection in Thorin's eyes, an undisguised fondness, and an ember of responding heat as well.

Thorin excused himself from the table and made his way through the crowd to stand before Bilbo, leaning down to speak lowly in Bilbo's ear - a polite move, obliging really, ensuring that he would be heard over the noise. From the tiniest upward twitch of his mouth, Bilbo knew better.

"You look like you could do with an early night."

"Oh, I don’t know," Bilbo grinned. "I’m not the least bit sleepy."

Thorin leaned even closer, Bilbo could almost taste the warmth of the Dwarf's skin on his parted lips. A lock of his hair slid from his shoulders and brushed along the side of Bilbo's face, the earthy and spicy smell nearly overwhelming now. The next words, uttered with an undertone of mischief, were breathed right over the shell of Bilbo's ear:

"You don’t have to sleep."

Bilbo's eyes flicked to the door leading upstairs before he could control himself. Thorin's smirk grew and he straightened up.

"I have to take my leave from the hostess," he said, his voice a rumble down Bilbo's spine. "Do not wander off too far without me, my Burglar."

Watching Thorin go away was one of the hardest things Bilbo had ever done. He shook his head to clear it a little and left the room, unnoticed and once again glad for it, pausing only to swipe a flask of greenish coloured oil from one of the tables where it stood next to a bowl of salad. He reckoned that tonight was going to be the last night on a comfortable bed and he was determined to make the most of it.

Bilbo trotted up the stairs and crossed swifty to the door of the room given to Thorin. He paused just outside of it, hearing Thorin's heavy tread on the steps behind him. Turning around, Bilbo leaned against the door and let his eyes roam freely over the ascending figure. Thorin's steps were measured, not hasty, but not leisurely either - as if with every step Thorin deliberately savoured the wait, built the anticipation, tightening the invisible string of tension between them by yet another notch. Bilbo silently thanked the solid wood behind his back that he wasn't visibly trembling by the time Thorin reached him.

Bilbo tilted his head up, licking his lips, and watched Thorin's gaze follow that movement. He breathed in the warmth of Thorin's quick exhale like a greedy fauntling snatching a first spoonful of strawberries with cream. Then he grinned once more and turned, sliding through the door and leaving Thorin on the doorstep.

Servants had been in here earlier, leaving fresh linens on the bed, a low fire in embers in the hearth and an oil lamp ready on the table. Bilbo quickly lit it, put his stolen flask on the floor by the headboard and waited by the bed. He didn't turn his head when he heard the click of a latch falling into place behind him, he didn't even twitch his ears when he felt Thorin stepping closer. He forced his eyes to stay open when he felt Thorin's breath stirring the curls at the back of his head, and he knew that if he leaned back just a bit, a broad and steadily heaving chest would be there to support him.

He could hear the rustle of Thorin's hair, the catch of it on the rich fabric of his coat, and then a hot breath gusted just over the tip of Bilbo's ear. He did twitch now, he was fairly helpless when it came to his ears, but still he held onto his control. Thorin's lips stayed where he put them, tantalizingly close but not touching, just teasing his sensitive skin with every exhale - and Bilbo wanted to surrender to that mouth, to let it do as Thorin pleased, and at the same time he wanted to feel that mouth quite elsewhere on his body, to take it as  _ he _ pleased, and the sharpness of his need would have surprised him if he was still able to think clearly.

Thorin's mouth moved lower, down to where Bilbo's overgrown hair got tangled with the shaggy collar of his borrowed jacket, and the Dwarf buried his face in the strands, apparently pleased with their length, running his lips along bare skin. Bilbo's felt his resolve snap.

"I want you so much."

Thorin tugged at Bilbo’s loose sleeve to expose more of his shoulder and sucked a small patch of skin between his teeth, worrying it just a little and then soothing the spot with a lingering kiss.

"I am at your service," he murmured, the hint of teasing still audible in his voice, and Bilbo gasped. His let his head drop forward and tried to rein in the flood of ideas he almost never dared to entertain, of images that had somehow made their home in his head tonight without him noticing and had never looked more alluring.

Bilbo turned around and his lips found Thorin's for a kiss.

With their mouths still locked in promise, Bilbo took one step backwards and slowly climbed on the too high bed, bracing his hands on the edge and levering himself up. As soon as he had his hands free again, he tangled them in Thorin's braids and pulled him down to lie beside him. Thorin went down slowly, letting his coat fall to the floor and following Bilbo's direction, and when their mouths came together next, it was with hunger. Bilbo trailed his fingers down the rough edge of Thorin's jaw, coming to press a little just below his lower lip, pushing down, opening Thorin's mouth wider, and he could almost drown in the taste there - something spicy, something homely, and a tang of wine more heady than the plonk served at the feast could ever dream to be.

Bilbo shrugged off his jacket when he could feel it being pulled down from his shoulders, unwilling to break the kiss even for a moment, but then Thorin managed to worm his hand under and up Bilbo's shirt. At the first contact of cool fingers with his feverish skin, Bilbo flinched a little. Rearing back, his head hung low, his courtship braid just brushing Thorin's hairline, Bilbo took a few shaky breaths with his eyes closed, completely missing the frown fleeting over Thorin's brow.

Thorin's other hand joined the first but boldly wandered south, squeezing Bilbo's bottom through his trousers and pulling him down to lie flush on the Dwarf's body.

"You are burning."

"Am not," Bilbo mumbled into the hollow of Thorin's neck. Then he shifted and came up with a seductively raised eyebrow. "I was rather hoping you would make me."

Thorin huffed out a silent laugh and cocked one raised knee to the side, a move that Bilbo knew would result in rolling them over and perhaps even a bothersome and absolutely unwelcome discussion of his physical health. To prevent that, he quickly slid his hand down Thorin's bent leg and pulled it to wrap it around his tighs, wasting no time in rolling his hips against the hardness he could feel in the hollow of Thorin's lap. Then his own bravado caught up with him and his breath hitched.

"Thorin. I want – can we–?"

Thorin's eyes were dark, pools of black pupils in flushed face. "You can take me, Bilbo."

Bilbo's hand slid down of its own volition to work on Thorin's belt even as the last of his rational mind tried to terrify him out of this.

"You're - it's not something a king should–"

The half-chiding, half-amused expression looked a bit out of place on a face that most of all looked like Thorin was waiting to be lost in pleasure, and Bilbo swallowed the rest of his stupid doubts.

"It is not something I have done often," Thorin admitted, "but as a prince, I have been taught to please my lover in every way. I can enjoy it, and with you... I find myself wanting it."

Bilbo bit his lip. That talk about Thorin's past experience should not have sounded as hot as it did. Bilbo's own was rather lacking in that department. He had experimented in his tweens, of course, but soon he found he preferred his bedsport the other way round. But now his past experiences seemed to evaporate, his past everything paling under the rush of the present. It was terrifying and exhilarating all at once, and Bilbo rode the wave with his heart beating out of his chest and eyes so wide that he could feel them burning.   

He knelt up, shoving off his tunic and wriggling out of his trousers while Thorin made short work of his own clothes, faster than Bilbo would have thought possible. When Bilbo lay down again, Thorin filledboth Bilbo's hand and his own with oil, and soon joined Bilbo's gentle, a bit clumsy and overly careful ministrations with his own surer touch. Bilbo had to squeeze his eyes shut at the sight - just the feel of Thorin's fingers working alongside his was almost too much.

When he realised Thorin was gripping his waist and pulling him on top of him - so soon, too soon, he couldn't be ready yet - Bilbo panicked.

"I am ready," Thorin murmured, soothing and just a little impatient. Bilbo wanted to kiss him but he couldn't reach. Why the Dwarves had to be so stupidly big? But then Thorin's arms were big as well and could reach far, and Bilbo felt a reassuring caress running through his hair, a gentle tug at his braid, an almost reverent stroke of his pointed ear - and then the hands slid along his back, gripped his hips and pulled him in.

Bilbo braced his whole body against the urge to push forward and bury himself deep. Teeth gritted and elbows locked to the point of pain - a rather welcome distraction, really - he leaned in with the tiniest amount of pressure. A strange expression flickered over Thorin's face - maybe surprise, as if his body was too slow to remember what this felt like, but no pain. Bilbo knew he couldn't have borne it if there was pain.

"Mine, mine, my...” Bilbo whispered dazedly, not even aware he’d been speaking aloud. Something stung within him at the words but the overwhelming sensation he felt made him forget what he was thinking about before the words were fully out of his mouth. He wanted to cry, he wanted to laugh, but most of all he wanted to move. Biting his lip, he rolled his hips in small experimental pushes until he saw Thorin's eyes flutter shut and heard his breath come out as if punched out of his lungs.

It was so much at once that Bilbo didn't know what to focus on, the sensations from the drag and pull on his flesh in the heat and tightness of Thorin’s body or the beautiful sight of Thorin's face transported in pleasure. And then Thorin crossed his ankles above Bilbo's waist and lifted his hips, shifting his weight on his upper back, and Bilbo could feel him tighten around him–

"Thorin–"

It was too much. Bilbo gulped down a breath when he remembered to and lifted his head. The echo of his wailing cry still rang in his ears and his arms shook with the effort of holding him up. Thorin was watching him with gratification, almost glowing with pride, and his gaze was a mix of soft affection and straining desire because oh– Thorin hadn't come.

Bilbo breathed hard through his embarrassment and then he lowered himself, every nerve ending still alive with the aftershocks of pleasure that thudded within him like a withdrawing tide. He slid down along Thorin's side, wrung-out, graceless, but determined, and took Thorin in his mouth.

 

*

 

Thorin shifted a little, moving his arm before it fell asleep. He tried not to dislodge Bilbo's head in the process. It took Bilbo ages to succumb to tiredness, and even now his little body was tense, twitching even in his sleep.

The night outside the window of their room was on the decline, dark blue giving way to opaline tones of pre-dawn sky, the daylight still a mere uncertain shade of grey, fumbling and sickly like a drunkard's head after a long feast. The darkness outside was waning but dark thoughts were still plaguing Thorin, and he couldn't ignore them anymore.

Bilbo had been... different, lately. Gone was the nervous Halfling, grown slack and complacent in his years of comfort and safety in the Shire. On one hand, it was good that Bilbo had finally shed every insecurity he might ever have had about himself - about them. Now his courage was an unstoppable force and when he stood up for Thorin - for the Company - protecting them, saving them, vouching for them - he was almost incandescent. Thorin was mesmerised by the sight. This was the Bilbo he remembered from his youth, the Halfling who dared to court a Prince - this was the clever and self-assured Bilbo that once aggravated and at the same time fascinated young Thorin to the point of distraction. But yet, there was a difference - and Thorin could not quite put his finger on what it was.

Gandalf's warning came unbidden to Thorin's mind. He thought on all those moments when Bilbo had surprised him with reckless courage. Now he realised that something about it sat uncomfortably with him. He hadn't even noticed it at the time, but Bilbo's expression when he killed Azog - that snarl around bared teeth, that fierce glint in his eyes - that wasn't the Bilbo he knew. If Bilbo was a warrior - the one he always claimed he wasn't - Thorin would have known how to interpret that face: a vicious, gleeful satisfaction. Warriors didn't need to feel pleasure at killing but there was always a bit of enjoyment at a good kill - after all, swords weren't meant to cut cakes; if you wielded one, you must be prepared to use it to kill, and you should be proud when you used it well. But for a Hobbit to look like that…

Maybe Thorin had read Bilbo's face wrong. After all, he hadn’t known him for years like he did know his comrades, his battle brothers, whose faces he could read like an open book - a glance, a quirk of eyebrows, a shadow darkening their eyes, and Thorin knew. But Bilbo's face was different. Beardless, for one, and so mobile, so expressive - but the expression didn't always match the thoughts going on behind it. Thorin already knew that Bilbo smiled most when he was nervous. A particularly charming smile usually meant that Bilbo was boiling with anger and his true happiness showed more around his eyes than around his mouth.

Bilbo used to frown when something amused him and his mouth often twitched as if in annoyance when he was, in fact, deep in thought - socould Thorin be sure of what he saw? Maybe Bilbo’s face put on a mask of cruelty when he was, in fact, terribly scared.

And Bilbo had been so shaken afterwards, so open and trusting. There was nothing wrong with him when they were alone, in those rare private moments between them. Thorin tightened his arms around Bilbo's evenly breathing form, gathering him closer to himself. It was as if that other Bilbo, unfamiliar, hard and sharp around the edges and unpredictable in danger, never existed.

"Have you slept at all?"

Thorin looked down to find his lover's eyes, quietly awake, gleaming at him in the gathering dawn.

"I couldn't," Thorin admitted. "It is hard, so close to the Mountain."

Bilbo hummed and stirred, burrowing deeper under the shared blanket.

Thorin chose his next words carefully. "You surprised me yesterday."

Bilbo blinked and quirked his lips in a coy smile: "Well, I love to surprise you. Even though I am a bit ashamed of my performance..."

"I meant our escape," Thorin interrupted him. "We are in your debt, many times over, and you went above and beyond in your help. But, Bilbo, you should avoid putting yourself in danger needlessly. As much as I appreciate your sentiment, I could go on without  _ Deathless _ . Swords will be of little use to us against a firedrake."

There was an undertone of annoyance to Bilbo's hum this time. Thorin knew that his soulmate's petulance and temper were quick to flare up on mornings when he'd had much drink and little sleep and for a moment he thought on having this conversation at some better time - but he already worried too much.

"I wanted to deflate the Elvenking's ego a bit. He had no right to treat you like vagabonds. I bet it's him who's treasure-sick, not Durin's line."

That had taken Thorin aback. "What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing really. He seemed to me a bit too greedy for shiny things, is all. And I wasn't in any danger, anyway. You keep forgetting that I am, in fact, excellent burglar material." Bilbo giggled.

"There is something about you," Thorin said and he would have certainly missed the forced exhale that left Bilbo's lips as he froze, if he hadn't had the Halfling pressed against his own chest. "Something Gandalf warned me about."

Bilbo sat up abruptly and Thorin didn't need to see his flat smile to know that Bilbo was very angry. "Did he, now?" he said irritably. "Well I hardly think you need any warnings against me. But if you don't trust me anymore, just say the word."

Thorin didn't understand. Something wasn't right here - and Bilbo was likely to close off entirely if pushed. He put his hand on Bilbo's shoulder and let it stay there, not pulling him back, just rubbing circles into the tense muscle under too hot skin.

"Calm down,  _ markhê _ . I meant no insult. Gandalf bade me to look out  _ for _ you, not to be on my guard  _ against _ you. I realise that you must wield a powerful magic. I felt something in Thranduil's throne room... I might have been dreaming but I was sure it was you. Did the Wizard cast a spell of invisibility on you? Do you suffer for it? I do not wish for an invisible burglar, however great an asset that would be, if it should come at the cost of your pain. I wish to help you."

Bilbo sat without a word for a long while and at last, Thorin could feel him relax a fraction.

"I assure you there’s no pain," he said softly. "Yes, I can turn invisible when I please but I believe that the old meddler had no right to go around spreading my secret!"

"Nobody knows," Thorin hastened to assure him. "And I am not afraid of you."

Bilbo swallowed and his voice was shaking a little when he replied: "I'm glad you're not. I think my heart would break if you ever became. Afraid - of me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fiddling with timeline is great in this one; in the Canon, Bard is not Girion's son. That's what happens when you squeeze 170 years into 17.


	11. Dragon's Spell

The hinges creaked as the cage rotated to and fro in the wind, the pitiful squeak of ceaseless swaying the only sound in the darkened fortress. Gandalf groped with trembling hand to pull his tattered garments closer to his body. The wind from the east had a nipping quality to it, glazing the bars of the cage with frost every morning. The days grew shorter fast. The last Moon of Autumn would shine upon the lands tonight. It was Durin's Day; and Gandalf despaired.

He had warned the Dwarves not to enter the Mountain without him. He fully intended to join them in time - and yet, even as he set out on this dangerous quest of his, out of a premonition he had tried to wrench a promise out of the Dwarves to wait.

Even when he knew they wouldn't. He could see them in his mind‘s eye, drawn to the Mountain like iron splinters to a lodestone, finding the secret door, watching the Sun set. Having the hallowed walls crack open for them... of course they wouldn't wait another year, of course they wouldn't take a voluntary step back from the very threshold of success.

They would enter the Mountain, and it would be Bilbo's doom.

Gandalf couldn't even remember the last time he had wept. In all their long years full of ardent labour, kindling hope and strength amongst the mortal races of Middle Earth, maintaining the resistance against the Enemy, Wizards rarely had tears to spare. Maybe as a young soul, when he clung to the green shores of Valinor and pleaded with lady Nienna to rethink her choice, maybe then he had wept. But now he felt the sting of salt in his eyes, felt the warm slide of wetness on his freezing face, because he had failed one innocent soul, and he was powerless to save it.

He knew the danger the Quest posed to Dwarves; he had weighed the odds and found them in his favour. But he had failed to foresee the danger to his one, small, innocuous addition. A little Hobbit. He had had a plan - Wizards always have plans - but the Enemy happened to have a plan of his own; and it seemed that it had been put in motion a long time ago.

Poisonous vapours rolled in thick mist over Dol Guldur, black and itching rains turned the soil to mud. The air was so permeated with black magic that Gandalf's stomach dry heaved every time he took a breath. Locked in a cage and slowly withering in harsh winds and foul rains, Gandalf could finally connect the dots. Now when he was his prisoner, he could see that the one they called Necromancer was in fact their dreaded Enemy, Sauron himself, who had risen to power together with the awakening of his long lost Ring.

Gandalf had little doubt now that the innocent-looking ring Bilbo found in Goblin caves was anything else than the One Ring. He remembered well Bilbo's jealousy over it, his fierce unwillingness to be parted from it. That was the effect only Rings of Power had on people, and it was unlikely that Bilbo would have been in possession of some Dwarven Ring, or one of those belonging to Men. No; the Seven had been accounted for, and the Ringwraiths would never relinquish one of their own.   

Galadriel had sensed it in Rivendell but her sight had been misled by a veil of confusion. They both had thought it was the evil lurking in Thorin's blood, the curse of his line. Nobody suspected the Halfling…

So many unrelated but odd events, so many half-broached questions and so many dismissed suspicions now made terrible sense. Gandalf recalled the blind, vicious vengeance with which Gollum had thrown himself at Bilbo's neck, raging like a rabid animal. Bilbo had lied to him from the start - Gandalf always sensed a hint of falsehood in the Hobbit's tale of how he had found the ring - but Gandalf did not know what grave consequences this one omission would have. It was Gollum who had the ring before Bilbo, that ghoul-like creature who, at least to Gandalf's eyes, still somehow resembled a Hobbit. Did the Hobbits not live in the Valleys of Anduin once? Wasn't it right there - on the Gladden Fields - where Isildur fell, slain by an Orc arrow, betrayed by his  _ precious _ heirloom and giving it its cursed name, Isildur's Bane?

And now the One Ring was in the pocket of a Halfling who was about to face a Dragon.

There was no consolation in trying to cling to the false hope that the Dragon would be asleep - and stay so - during Bilbo's sneaking around his hoard. Smaug had reigned over Erebor not even two decades, too short a time to fall into a deep, gold-sustained slumber. And even though he was a youngling when compared to the mighty drakes of old, he was still a member of an ancient race, one that could sense magic and craved the enchanted rings above all else. Even if Bilbo had been clever and tried to conceal the Ring from Smaug, the Dragon would still be enticed by its presence. He would be intrigued enough not to swallow the tiny intruder right away, he would want to play with him at least for a while.

For Dragons were old, and intelligent, and knowledgeable. They could be called wise, even, if such a word didn't imply benevolence that they inherently lacked, being the creatures of Morgoth. Their wisdom was cruel and self-indulgent, but inclinations aside, their wits were sharp and fast, and the greater the mind is, the worse it suffers with boredom when it's left to idle. Smaug would want to play mind games with Bilbo, he would want to ensnare his visitor with his cunning, and Bilbo - poor reckless Bilbo with his Ring-fuelled unnatural courage - would try to outwit the Dragon. He would try to riddle his way out of danger, just like he did with Gollum. The folly!

Gandalf shuddered in cold and dread. Darkness of the concealment charms was coiling around the foundations of the fortress, dark was the starless sky full of heavy clouds above his head, and darkest were the poisonous whispers the Enemy sneaked into the Wizard's mind. Gandalf concentrated his will on keeping his memory from scattering, maintaining the protective barrier around his mind that prevented Sauron looking into his heart and reading him like an open book, and he felt his life power slowly seeping out with the effort of keeping up a concealment of his own, a careful confusion of senses to hide Narya, the Ring of Fire. Sauron had never touched any of the Three, and on Gandalf's life, he wasn't going to.

His blindness, the blindness of the whole White Council, was about to doom the entire Middle Earth. Kingdoms would fall, nations would die out - but the one tear Gandalf shed went towards one insignificant person, his old friend, a little burglar who didn't know what he was about to face.

Dragons could not only sense magic; they had a kind of their own. They could twist the mind of their listener, bend it to their will, if someone listened to them for too long. They could ensnare an innocent soul with their serpent-like gaze. They could cast spells. One of the reasons Gandalf wanted to be there when the Mountain was reclaimed was his fear that Smaug most likely had cast spells upon his hoard. It would do evil even after his demise, inflicting dragon-sickness in anyone who came too close to it. There had been precedents - when King Fram, lord of the Éothéod, slew Scatha of the Grey Mountains, he became so bewitched by her treasure that he'd claimed the whole hoard as his own and rebuked all claims of the Dwarves from whom Scatha too had stolen. A war broke out between the Dwarves and Men, and Fram paid the price with his own life. Gandalf wanted to prevent the history from repeating.  

Now the Dwarves were almost certain to fall prey to the hoard's curse. Maybe only Thorin was safe, the bond to his soulmate protecting his heart. But was that bond enough to save Bilbo as well? Was it stronger than the hold of the Ring on Bilbo's mind? Gandalf could only hope, locked and starving in a cage as he was. Wizards were never late, but this time Gandalf knew he wouldn't be where he should in time.

What foul seed would Smaug try to sow in Bilbo's mind?

 

*

 

"I am almost tempted to let you take it..."

The huge serpentine head cocked to the side in a strangely human contemplative gesture. The Arkenstone's changeable light shone mockingly out of the little pile of gold. Bilbo stood frozen three paces from his prize - maybe two, if he was quick - and didn't dare to move.  

"If only to see the would-be King suffer," Smaug finished his drawl, three-pronged tongue hissing over the sibilants like a blade put to a grindstone. His unblinking eyes bore into Bilbo's, shining with cruelty.

"I would watch it destroy him..."

Out of nothing, Bilbo remembered the sight of the Arkenstone mounted above the throne the day he entered Erebor for the first time, interrupting the open court with his grand arrival. The King's jewel sitting in the centre of everyone's attention like a big fat spider, the throne beneath it bathed in unnatural, ghoulish light.

_ The sickness of his line… _

All of a sudden Bilbo could see it - his imagination so sharp that it manifested into an almost physical shape before his eyes, Smaug's words coalescing into an image of Thorin - his Thorin - befallen by sickness, slipping deeper into madness with each passing day, his face sallow and eyes dark-circled, stark against a steel-and-golden crown…

"Watch it corrupt his heart..."

Smaug slithered closer, and still Bilbo stood his ground even as his heart tried to beat its way out of his chest, the frantic thudding drowning out everything except for the Dragon's words swirling inside his head.

"... and drive  _ him  _ **_mad_ ** _! _ "  

 

*

 

_ A day earlier... _

 

" _ Henig _ , stop."

Legolas straightened his spine and shot his father a sidelong glance but his hands didn't stop their work on the saddle, tightening the girth and soothing the horse with a brief pat on its neck. Thranduil frowned. Of course. His son wasn't a little child anymore.

" _ Ionneg.  _ I would not have to order you. I beg of you. Don't go."

This time, Legolas turned to him, but only because his horse was ready.

"I cannot stay behind,  _ ada _ ." 

So young, Thranduil thought, like a first light of dawn that travels through the air and is not yet spoiled by touching the earth. So slender and tall as a young beech, strong, able and keen, quivering with readiness like the string of a yet undrawn bow. Thranduil's heart ached.

"You cannot help the Dwarves, Legolas. They go to their doom."

"And what about the people of Lake-town?" Legolas protested. "They still are our allies - however our ties have festered over the years. Even if I can't stop the Dwarves - there's -"

Legolas shook his head in frustration, struggling to find the words, and in the end he met his father with a steady gaze. "I cannot just stay behind, waiting and enduring, removed from everything that passes in the world. Forgive me,  _ ada _ , but I cannot."

Thranduil reached out his hand to him - an instinctive gesture that he got hold of in the last second. The outstretched arm hovered in the air between them for the span of two breaths and Legolas' feet shifted in an aborted step towards his father. A pair of ageless grey eyes filled with despair met a pair of mauve ones, a colour of east sky before the sun rises. Then the moment shattered.  

"This evil is stronger than any of us," Thranduil whispered.

"Every evil is only as strong as we allow it to be," Legolas said softly and bowed his head.

Then he gathered his horse and a party of bowmen and together they galloped off to the night, to the east. Thranduil made no more attempts to stop them.  

 

*

_ Back in the present... _

 

Bilbo stumbled up the winding staircases and blindly groped along the dark corridors, out of breath and nearly out of mind. Perished corpses leered at him from the blind nooks, bodiless voices called out to him from the depths under the narrow bridges. He’d hidden in the ghost-world of the ring to escape the dragon but that had thrust him right into the arms of ghosts that dwelled in the mountain. Beneath him, the stone shook with the rage of a robbed dragon.

"Bilbo!" "Bilbo, where are you?" "Hold on, Bilbo!"

Bilbo slid to the floor in exhaustion, heedless of the hard stone skinning his knees, and doubled over in a vicious cough. His lungs were full of stirred up ash and dust and too hot air, and the balls of his feet throbbed with burning pain where the flames licked at them. This burgling business was becoming, quite literally, too hot a ground! Through the pounding of blood in his ears and the hacking of his cough, through the whispers of a voice hissing like the flames themselves, Bilbo had almost missed the shouts.

"Bilbo!"

He made it far enough, didn't he? The dragon couldn't get to him now. Wincing as if he was tearing a scab from a still fresh wound, Bilbo finally pulled off the ring and dropped it into his waistcoat pocket just as the first of the Dwarves rounded the corner.

"Oh Bilbo!" "There he is! He's all right!" "What happened?"

The Company gathered around him in a protective circle. Strong arms enveloped him and Bilbo drew in a wheezing breath. Safe. Safe. For now.

"So- sorry," he stammered. "I woke him."

The walls around them quaked and the dust kicked up from the floor as another outburst of dragon fury brought wreckage on the halls below.

"And made him mighty angry, I'd say," Balin chuckled, false mirth poorly hiding the uneasiness in his eyes.

"Yes, yes," Bilbo muttered, still a bit disoriented. "Turns out dragons don't take well to burglars stealing from their treasure..."

"You found it, master burglar?" Glóin exclaimed. At once, all the Dwarves' faces lit up in excitement. "You stole the Arkenstone from him?"

Bilbo froze. In a flash, clear like a lightning ripping across the sky, he could see Thorin gazing at the jewel, his sick face illuminated by its shine, his eyes like glimmering diamonds, translucent, sharp-edged and dead…

"Um... I, that is... I couldn't find it. Didn't see it anywhere." He buried his face in Thorin's coat and rocked slightly. He didn't even need to pretend he was still reeling with shock from his encounter with a dragon. He was terrified - only for a quite different reason.

"Then what's that in your pocket?" Nori suddenly put in. Bilbo squeezed his eyes tightly shut and thanked heavens that the wild horror that must have been visible on his face was hidden in the embrace. He could almost feel the scrawny fingers on his neck again. But no, Gollum was not here, he was dead and gone–

"It looks much fuller than it was before you went down."

"I live to see the day you stop noticing anyone else's pockets–" Dori began, before it clicked to him, too.

Confused and trying to come up with anything that would get him out of this mess, Bilbo slowly reached into his coat pocket. Confused, because the Arkenstone was still tucked away up his sleeve - in his mad dash from the dragon, Bilbo hadn’t had the time to hide it properly. So what was Nori talking about?

His confusion grew even more when his hand came back up full of gold and gems.

"Oh," several of the Dwarves breathed out reverently. A golden chain of intricately woven links slipped out of the little pile and Bilbo’s hand jerked to catch it. Bofur was quicker, though, snatching it from the air before it could fall. Bilbo’s eyes narrowed and he felt something ugly swell rapidly in his chest. Then his stomach turned and he blinked. What was wrong with him? It wasn’t as if the treasure was his, now, was it?

A sapphire or two sparkled with blue fire in the  hollow of Bilbo’s palm. Gold pieces gleamed with the dull shine of a pure metal as he shifted his fingers. Yes, Bilbo could see the appeal, but it was just raw gold, right? Not as beautiful as… other things. Not nearly as pretty as his little ring, for instance.    

Bilbo stared, trying to clear his muddled thoughts. When did he put this in his pocket? He didn't remember doing so. Well, he must have done, seeing as he was alone there with the dragon, but– no. His pocket was full of treasure and Bilbo didn't remember stealing it. He must have done it unthinkingly as he sifted through the immense hoard, before the dragon woke, before he’d even glimpsed his true prize. Bilbo tried to stifle a mad giggle and didn't quite succeed.

"Well - I couldn't find the Arkenstone - so I thought I'd bring at least something - but then the dragon–"

"Hush!" Óin interrupted him suddenly. "I can't hear anything."

"That's because you're growing deaf, I've been telling you–"

"Shut up, brother! I can't hear the dragon anymore!"

Everyone fell silent, even Bilbo tried to hold his shaky breath. It was true. The mountain was eerily still.

"He couldn't fall asleep again, could he?"

"He lurks down there, lying in ambush..."

"Smaug has left the mountain," Bofur put an end to the speculations in a calm tone of someone who was sure of his conclusion. "The front gate was sealed when we arrived to Erebor and now I can feel a draught that I couldn't feel before. Smaug must have broken through the gate and got out."

"Is everyone in?" Thorin looked over his shoulder and was met with Dwalin's nod. Every one of the Company was accounted for, safe in the corridors of the mountain.

"He'll be looking for us on the mountainside," Dwalin said with a decidedly spiteful smirk. "Won't find a hair of us. Won't fit through the secret door either."

Sudden thought jolted through Bilbo's head and sent a wave of fresh tremors through his body. "No, no, no..."

_ Barrel-rider! Now  _ **_that_ ** _ is interesting. _

"It's not us he's after," Bilbo whispered, devastated by his own stupidity. He'd promised -  _ vowed _ \- that he wouldn't let harm come to the people of Lake-town.

And then he went and gloated in front of the Dragon, thinking how clever it was to give himself fancy titles - and practically sending him to get his revenge on the innocent town.

It was all his fault.

 

 

 

**Sindarin:** (source: http://www.arwen-undomiel.com/elvish/phrases.html)

_Henig_ \- my child (lit. diminuitive 'child')  


_ Ionneg -   _ my son (lit. diminuitive 'son')

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dear readers, 
> 
> as things are going to become very dark, I would like to know if anyone is still reading this. My personal health issues (I have SAD and recently the depression has taken a nasty turn for worse) have taken away a lot of enjoyment I had over writing this and as of late, writing this fic has no longer helped but probably only made things worse. I would love to see this finished but without any motivation I am not compelled to actually do it... so, this is when you come in. I could do with a bit of support. You can let me know that you're still reading, and if you're too shy to leave a comment (or you're reading on the phone and the interface is just too much of a hassle) you can reblog [ this post ](http://squire-reblogs.tumblr.com/post/137735569831/long-forgotten-gold-update) I made on Tumblr. The more people sees this, the less I would feel that I am alone in the dark. 
> 
> Thank you.


	12. Gold Sickness

A small group of Elven riders slowed to a trot on the muddy slope of the shore. The bay roan at the lead had just laid a hoof on the first plank of the narrow bridge connecting Lake-town with the mainland when the rider stopped him, lifting a hand in a command to halt the others and freezing in intense attention. The night was quiet, the lanterns of the city guards on their patrol rounds moving unhurriedly, the only sound the gentle waves lapping at the wooden pillars of the bridge.

Then they saw the flash of red fire spilling through the cracks in the gates of the Mountain on the far horizon, and a few moments later a rolling billow of sound came roaring across the distance, rippling the surface of the lake in wild waves as the Mountain shook and quaked.

A bell rang out in the town of Men in warning and lights went up as people were roused from their sleep, and terrified shouts soon spread across the town, repeating one word over and over.

"Dragon!"

A windstorm hit them, out of nowhere. Legolas had never felt a gale like this before but he'd heard the stories. The dragon wings were hurricanes. The beast must have been approaching. Their horses huddled close together in terror and only the soft words of their Elven masters kept them from bolting, the eyes of both horses and riders turned to the sky and wide with fear.

And then the Elves saw him. A shadow against the stars, blocking their light with his immense shape. Smaug dived from the sky and a hail of arrows from the town rose to greet him, but the dragon surged through them like wind through grass, unscratched and without a care. Spreading his wings into a low glide just above the rooftops, he opened his jaws and seared a line of flame upon the town.

Small smudges of dark shapes detached themselves from the main silhouette of the town above the water. Legolas realised that they were boats, full of people to the point of sinking, and they were paddling frantically with planks or bare hands if they had to, trying to keep out of the light of the fire and reach the shore. More people burst through the now open gate and poured onto the bridge, every one trying to be faster than the other - and soon a man or two were pushed too close to the edge and fell over, splashing into the water with desperate cries. The Elven mounts neighed in terror, bucked and pranced, and the Elves watched in awestruck fright as the dragon swung high in the air to take another turn.

Suddenly, a scream pierced the night seemingly right next to them, and a second later a young boyish figure that, until then, nobody had noticed crouching almost under the bridge, tore himself from his shocked stupor and ran, barrelling blindly into the riders and trying to get through them and into the town.

"Stay back!" Legolas shouted, grabbing the shoulder of the young man - little more than a boy.

"Let go!" the boy wailed. "My mother's in there!" He struggled, eyes scrunched and face wet with tears, and he didn't seem to realise that he was still clutching a fishing rod in one hand. It got tangled between the horse legs and he tripped over it, splaying himself in the slippery mud. Legolas slid down from the saddle and motioned to his people to withdraw to the safety of the nearby tree line. He then tried to drag the boy away with him.

"You can't get in there! The people will trample over you–"

"I have to get her!" The boy cried and fought - then abruptly, he stopped, blinking up at Legolas, as if he only now came to his senses and finally noticed whom he was grappling with.

"You're an Elf," he blurted out. Then he started babbling. "Oh, Elves, Elven archers, bows, one loosened scale, oh–" and he twisted himself out of Legolas' grasp and went after his longbow instead, trying to wrench it from the Elf and grab an arrow, too. He didn't waste time with an explanation, his brow was drawn with urgency and teeth bared in determination.

Legolas was so taken by surprise that for a moment it seemed that the boy would succeed - but of course then two of his Elves rushed to them and restrained the boy again. The bow and arrow fell to the ground, forgotten for the moment, and the boy began dealing out blows that did little damage, kicking and squirming and all the time pleading in his breaking voice:

"Give me that, I know where to aim, it's just over his heart, you have to let me  _ try– _ "

Something about him was so desperately honest that, against his better judgement, Legolas ordered: "Let the child speak."

"I'm not a child!" the boy squeaked immediately, his adolescent voice betraying him once more, and despite the dragon flying over their heads, Legolas' mouth twitched in amusement.  The boy babbled on, undeterred: "I'm Bard, son of Girion, and I know how to kill that beast! If I can only get a clear shot–"

The gush of wind almost flattened them to the ground as the dragon began to descend once more. Legolas waved his comrades on to carry the boy to safety, breaking into run and shouting over the havoc:

"My brave boy, not even a war bow of the Elves is enough to shoot a Dragon from the sky!"

"There's a weakness in his armour! A missing scale where my father hit him!" Bard shouted back. Then he twisted like a weasel, leaving only his jacket in the hands of Elves and a pair of gobsmacked expressions on their faces, and ran back to where the bow and a single arrow still lay in the mud, forgotten in their hasty retreat.

Legolas spared a brief thought of admiration for the young Man who did not shrink under the swelling roar of a Dragon and instead aimed with utmost care, watching and waiting for the best moment. The entire group of Elves held their breath when he loosened the arrow. They could see the proud line of its flight, zinging through the flames, bound for the small dull point in the otherwise unblemished shining coat of Smaug's chest. They could see it fly - and hit - and miss.

"Damn!" Bard swore. "Quick, give me another!"

"Run!" Legolas yelled instead, adding an Elven swearword that Mirkwood hadn't heard in four hundred years. He cursed himself now for admiring - however briefly  - what was the biggest tomfoolery he'd ever seen - needling the Dragon with an useless arrow, alerting him to their presence! Because instead of pouring out, the flames building in Smaug's throat dimmed, his giant head swivelled through the air and his sharp eyes searched the shore. Smaug didn't miss the attack from an unexpected direction, he had noticed an arrow coming not from the town, but from the shore. Legolas saw him jerking in the air, halting his descent towards the town and changing his direction, having apparently changed his mind as well. He must have abandoned his plan to burn the town to ashes and decided to have a bit of fun first.

Before the Elves and Bard could make it to cover, Smaug had landed between them and the trees, blocking their escape. The impact of his body on the ground lifted enough dirt to cloud the starlight, and when the dust settled, his scales and eyes shone terribly bright in the fires of burning Lake-town.

Never before had Legolas felt so small.

"What do we have here?" Smaug laughed, craning his long neck over the stock-still group to get a better look at Bard who stood in the middle, pale as death with a white-knuckled grip on the now useless bow.

"A little child and his Elfling friends! I'm almost offended."

Smaug’s long tail swished in a wide arc behind him, bringing down several trees without him moving an eyelid.

"Who are you to challenge me, child? Do you think your petty bow would save you? I withstood the Dwarven arrows of old! Are you trying to make me die from laughter, tickled by your wooden sticks?"

The Dragon advanced a step, holding his slithering body up on his clawed wings. The Elves shrank further together, as if their silver armour could protect the defenceless child in their midst from the firestorm.

"You cannot protect your town, child. Not you, not your green Elven friends," Smaug taunted. His unwavering eyes drank in the sight of Bard who stood transfixed, frozen perhaps with shock or dread or overwhelming hatred. Legolas shivered and thought that the dragon's gaze could have been powerful enough to drain the mind of his enemy through their eyes, their innermost fears laid bare to him.

"Is your mother in the town?" Smaug asked, pulling his mouth wider into something akin to horrible smile. "Should I let you live so you could watch her burn?"

Bard still hadn't moved, caught like a fledgling in the stare of a snake, and Legolas felt cold running down his spine.This was their end. Was this the fear that mortal races bore their entire lives? Then he frowned. His shivers weren't just from dread; he literally felt freezing cold along his back. Overcome with curiosity amidst their helpless situation, Legolas reached back and drew  _ Orcrist _ out of its sheath.

The blade glittered with the colour of lightning, white with an edge of blue, the metal almost translucent, as if carved from ice itself. Legolas watched in awe how frostwork spread across his hand and twined up his forearm, his fingers going numb with cold. Distantly he noted a realisation that this was why the sword handle was made of bone - a touch to the metal would cost him his fingers now. The air around them was scorching from the closeness of the Dragon and yet the frost on his sleeves didn't melt. His heartbeat slowed, an age between one beat and another. His thoughts crystallised into focus, clear and sharp as the teeth of winter.  

From a distance, the mysterious shadow's words from the Palace came back to him:

_ That blade survived the Fall of Gondolin. It was forged to slay Balrogs… And you’re wasting it on cutting spider legs! _

It was no mere blade. The ancient smiths had woven magic into the steel, laid spells of power and protection against fire. They had Balrogs and firedrakes in mind when they forged this blade in flames that could match the demonic heat and quenched it in water mixed with snow.  Legolas felt the magic seep into his bones, course through his veins like melting ice, and his heart harden with resolve. He looked up just as Smaug was finishing his mocking, boasting speech.

"You cannot stand against me," Smaug spat and his belly heaved, the furnace within beginning to shine through the lighter scales. He leant back and drew his long neck away to deliver a breath of fire that would kill them all. Legolas leapt forward.

The fire hit him like a gust of wind, so strong that it was almost like pushing through a wall, but the heat didn't touch him. Distantly, he could hear the cries of his companions behind, running in all directions from the fire pouring onto the spot where they stood a moment ago, hopefully dragging the shell-shocked Bard away with them. Then he was close, the large expanse of scaly skin like an impenetrable mountain in front of him, so hot that the air danced before Legolas' eyes and he was sure his hair would spontaneously catch fire - but still the sword protected him. And there it was, the missing scale - and Legolas drove his sword into that one spot with all his might.

The ancient blade, shining with icy blue, cut through the hard muscle stretching over the dragon's chest, a muscle as hard as rock and sinews as strong as tree roots, until the very tip pierced the dragon's heart.

The roar shook the earth. Trees in a broad half-circle went down like ninepins, the water in the lake shrank back and then attacked the shore twice as angrily, crashing onto the shore and raining foam on the convulsing beast on the ground. Without aim, Smaug spewed furious fire to the sky, choking sounds escaping him as he tried to dislodge the sword in his chest and only succeeded in impaling himself further. Legolas dodged the trashing wings and ran, his hair singed to crumbling tinder as the spell broke, and soon his comrades grabbed him by the forearms and all but threw him into the lake. Steam rising from his clothes and with a throat parched so much that it hurt to breathe, Legolas turned around and dared to look at the beast. Spear-like claws tore through the earth in his dying tremors, giant wings tried to sweep one more time - and then the fire in his core went out, and with a last hiss of smoke the horn-crowned head fell into the mud. Smaug, Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities, was dead.

Legolas gulped and staggered on his feet, and then almost fell when Bard threw himself around his shoulders, sobbing and laughing at once. Still not quite comprehending what just happened, Legolas cast a befuddled look around him. As one, his comrades bowed to him. The enormity of what he'd just done slowly began to sink in.

"Well," said Legolas, feeling suddenly overwhelmingly grateful and at the same time spiteful towards the unnamed shadow who let him keep  _ Orcrist _ and called him Elfling in the same breath. "No more wasted on cutting spider legs, I think."

On the far end of the smouldering bridge, several people cautiously lifted their heads from where they had been lying down, their eyes squeezed shut and their hands pressed over their ears, during the entirety of Smaug's last stand. Tentative calls from the town floated over the water. But the uproar of cheers over the dragon's demise was soon drowned out by cries for help with fighting the fires, saving people stuck in crumbling houses, and anguish over homes and lives lost. Behind the gaping bridge gates, the town of Lake-men was burning, framing the scene of victory in a black cloud of bitter smoke.

 

*

 

"They seem to have got the fires under control," Ori called down from his observation spot at the top of the pile of rubble that was once the front gate.

"And the dragon?"

"It's too far to see clearly but he didn't get up from where he landed so I assume he's slain."

Dori let out a whooshing breath of relief and held up his hand to his brother. Ori hopped down from the boulders and dusted his knees.

"We have to tell the others," he said eagerly. Dori gave him his arm and together they headed inside Erebor. Just as they passed the throne room - and by Mahal, the entrance was badly damaged and the dais looked as if Smaug stomped on it out of spite - Dori noticed a lone figure standing in the middle of the great hall, head tilted back to admire the great statues.

"There you are, Bilbo!" Ori called, his excited grin fading a bit in the mood-dampening and intimidating atmosphere of the grand and empty hall. "We've got some good news!"

Bilbo jerked and looked over his shoulder with a little guilty smile, as if he was ashamed that he’d become so lost in his own thoughts.

"Sorry, oh, hello Ori. Dori. I was just remembering how this room looked the first day I came here. I remember having been so impressed..."

Dori chuckled. "And I bet the impression grew even grander in memory. Don't worry, Master Baggins, you'll see it restored back to old glory in no time, and I daresay it'll even beat the old days, and perhaps even the expectations of your colourful imagination!"

Bilbo looked sheepish. He probably wasn't happy that his disappointment over the state of Erebor was so plain to see. He looked again at the clawed out pillar where the Arkenstone used to sit and muttered:

"I'm not sure I want to see everything back to as it once was." Then he shook his head and frowned. "Sorry, thinking aloud." And before Ori could impart his good news, Bilbo turned and walked out, with just a distracted wave of his hand as a parting. His steps were fast and anxious and Dori could see his eyes jumping from one thing to another like a fretting bird.

The two brothers exchanged a puzzled look. Then Dori scratched his beard.

"Guess he's still shaken from talking to the dragon," and Ori shuddered in sympathy.

"I'll fetch Óin," Ori proposed. "Maybe he restocked on spirits in Lake-town. A good draught of something strong would do our Hobbit a world of good."   

 

*

 

Bofur rounded a corner and almost collided with someone coming from the other direction. Oh yes: he would know that indignant yelp anywhere.

"Bilbo! Warn a fellow! You should be wearing boots around here, otherwise nobody hears you approaching and we could trample over you in the dark!"

"It's okay," Bilbo mumbled, massaging his ribs, and Bofur's grin faded when he realised that the expected diatribe about the mutual incompatibility of Hobbits and footwear wasn't coming.

"Oi, Bilbo, you all right?"

"Quite all right, thank you," Bilbo said, and he sounded a bit put out now. Then he cocked his head to the side and pointed at Bofur's ear.

"Is that a new cuff?"

Bofur smiled proudly, feeling warm all over again. "It is," he agreed. "Nori gave it to me. Swears that it's the finest in all Erebor! Told the others that they can deduct it from his share. Glóin nearly got a fit, he hadn't yet started on counting and cataloguing the treasure, and his little banker's head is in overdrive."

Bilbo was nodding along and his fingers played absentmindedly with the golden coin-bead in his hair. Gratitude swelled in Bofur that Bilbo had noticed the progress of his friend's courtship. This was the best time Bofur had ever had - and the future was bound to be even better. In the old Erebor, he was but a simple miner that never had enough silver in his pocket, let alone gold. Well, a miner he would be again, his natural stone-sense thrived underground and he liked to uncover the hidden beauty of rock. But now he could let go of the endless worry of meeting the standards, now he could mine gems and instead of thinking if they would be enough to buy food for his family he could think of how beautiful they would look on Nori's fingers.

Speaking of the thief…

"Shouldn't you be sifting through the treasury?" Nori drawled in his ear, appearing out of nowhere to breathe down Bofur's neck. By Mahal above, Bofur was going to find out one day how Nori was doing that, so he was.

"Nah," he said with half-hearted sigh, "not my turn yet, and anyway Thorin can search for the Arkenstone alone for all I care."

Out of the corner of his eye, Bofur noticed Bilbo studiously peering at his own toes. He grinned. Was the Halfling getting uncomfortable watching Nori practically crawling all over Bofur?

"Well, it is my turn," Nori whispered, "and I'm there all on my own," and Bofur's face heated when he saw where this was going, "and I've got it from a good source that nobody but Kings have ever fucked in the treasury room."

Bilbo stifled another yelp and scampered off. Bofur followed his retreat with a concerned frown. The little Halfling looked almost disgusted with what he'd overheard, as if Nori proposed a sacrilege and not a harmless - well, maybe a bit decadent - romp in a nice atmospheric setting.

"You know what I think?" Bofur noted. "Our burglar needs to get laid."

"I'll thank you to keep the Hobbit out of this conversation," Nori said. "Last I checked, I was about to get laid."

 

*

 

Bombur righted an overturned chair in the middle of the kitchens, sat down on the creaking wood and indulged in a bit of happy cry.

"Oh dear," he suddenly heard. "What's wrong?" He looked up to find Master Baggins in front of him, and Mahal bless the lad, his eyes seemed a bit red-rimmed too.

"Nothing's wrong," Bombur sniffed and laughed. He waved a hand around, encompassing the kitchen area. "It's just - this is where I met my Beinta, and I can still see it as if it was only yesterday.... she's going to be so happy to be back!"

Bombur sprang to his feet and hurried over to the sinks. "See this?" he pointed at the taps. "I made designs for the kitchen renovations after we started courting, and this was my best idea. Hot water distribution!"

He turned one of the taps and grinned expectantly. The pipe gurgled and then coughed up a gulp of dirt, more sand than water.

"Oh," Bombur deflated slightly, "as soon as we get the great forges going, of course. And maybe after Bifur takes a look at the plumbing. But no more lifting of heavy pots for my lady..."

He started opening the cabinets and then shrieked when a rat ran out of one, the bugger as big as his forearm. When he looked over his shoulder apologetically, he saw that Bilbo had taken refuge from the rodent high on the chair that Bombur had vacated.

"I'll get this in shape for her, and she's going to be the empress of the kitchens!" Bombur finished, feeling almost giddy with the prospect.

"Yup, you've all rather risen in station, haven't you, now," Bilbo observed as if lost in thoughts.

Bombur laughed. "As have you! You're the Hero Burglar of Erebor!"

"I'm not sure what use Erebor would have for burglars," Bilbo said, a bit unsure. Bombur halted in surprise.

"But you're the consort of the king - or as good as one! Have you forgotten that you'd practically married Thorin? All it needs is–"

"Yes, Thorin," Bilbo interrupted him. "I actually came here to talk to you about him. Has he been eating enough? I think he's skipping mealtimes..."

Bombur shrugged. "There's a lot on his mind, you know, that takes away one's taste for food. With the reconstruction ahead and all the people moving back–"

"–and the search for the Arkenstone," finished Bilbo grimly. Bombur nodded; the Arkenstone was important, of course. Or so everyone was saying, he supposed.

"But what about you?" he suddenly remembered. "I haven't seen you at breakfast! Wait here, I'm sure there were some nuts in honey in that cabinet over there–" Bombur strained on his toes and indeed, the rows of glass pots appeared intact.

"Still sealed," Bombur nodded to himself contentedly. "It should be good even after all those years." He dusted the jar and pressed it into the Halfling's hand. "There you are."

"Thank you, Bombur," Bilbo smiled. "I think I'll eat this later, in some fresh air."

Yes, it was rather dusty in the kitchens, now that Bombur noticed it. Whatever. Now they had won the mountain back, they were going to fix everything.

 

*

 

Óin straightened his back and wiped his forehead, accidentally smearing the dust all over himself like war paint. Most of the poultices had moulded but that was to be expected. The bunches of dried herbs usually kept on the racks under the ceiling were also gone - the rats and mice must have got desperate during the long years of being left to their own devices. But some of the hard-pressed powders were still good, and some of the extracts stored in wax-sealed bottles survived as well. All the surgery tools would need a good sharpening first but all things considered, the infirmary looked surprisingly well.

He noticed Bilbo hovering uncertainly in the doorframe and waved him over. The lad kept shuffling his feet and looking rather embarrassed. Oh Mahal above, Óin groaned internally, if he was going to ask for  _ medical _ advice concerning the... carnal... side of his marriage - there were things about his King that Óin certainly didn't want to know!

"Well, lad, spit it out," he said, hoping it was just about a cold.

"It's about Thorin," Bilbo mumbled and Óin kept his cringe for himself. "I can't help but worry a bit... he barely sleeps, you know? I think he's pushing himself too much."

Óin suppressed a sigh of relief. "Don't worry, lad! We Dwarves can endure a sleepless night or two." Then he took a closer look at Bilbo and frowned. "Actually, how well have you been sleeping? The bags under your eyes have bags."

"I do have a bit of trouble falling asleep," Bilbo admitted timidly. "I'm not used to sleeping under so much stone," he explained and then he shivered. "It echoes voices in such a strange way... sometimes it is as if I heard a voice but when I look, nobody's there."

Óin hummed in sympathy. The poor Hobbit was probably spooked out of his wits, and no wonder, with corpses in every other room that the Company had no chance of putting to proper rest, not when their number was still so small. Aloud, he said comfortingly:

"I could give you something for that - the dragon had little taste for sleeping draughts. Just say the word and I'll mix you something for a good night's rest." He motioned over to the already inspected cupboards and Bilbo followed the motion with a distracted gaze.

"Thank you, Óin, I'll keep that in mind," Bilbo said absentmindedly and left.

 

*

 

Balin shook out another blanket and cursed when another flutter of moths spread in the air. The state of the linen cupboards was abysmal - half of it eaten through by nestling mice and the moths did away with the rest. Fetching enough mattresses and blankets to establish a temporary dormitory for the Company was a harder task than it first seemed.

He tossed the ruined blanket on the floor and reached for another when he noticed a rather haggard figure coming slowly from the direction of the treasury. Bilbo's shoulders were slumped and he looked aged by years, not days, since they entered Erebor. Balin sighed to himself.

"Bilbo!" he scolded him lightly. "What were you doing there? You know very well what Thorin said. Our brave dragon-riddler is excused from slaving away at searching through the hoard!"

Thorin had issued the decree with the intention of sparing Bilbo the unpleasant memories - Mahal knew what had passed in the treasury between Bilbo and the Dragon, but Bilbo's shock-glazed eyes and burned heels were proof enough that it wasn't nice.

"Oh, you know," Bilbo said vaguely, "I've been looking for Thorin. Can't find him anywhere and this seemed like the best guess."

Balin was a bit surprised at the forcibly even tone of Bilbo's voice. Were those two idiots having a spat again?

"He's in the watchtower," he said obligingly, "inspecting the ravens. We're going to need the help of our kin."

"Kin?" Bilbo asked. "Oh, you mean from the Iron Hills."

"Exactly," Balin nodded, proud of how well-versed the future consort was in the matters of Dwarven political geography. "We're but twelve, and to restore this mountain and keep it going, we would need a hundred times more, at least. Dáin from the Iron Hills will come with aid, soon."

"And is this Dáin... trustworthy?" asked Bilbo with something akin to suspicion. "He comes here, with an army of builders, crafters, miners... and soldiers. Wouldn't his people rather see him on the throne, than Thorin?"

"I see you have a good head for politics," Balin chuckled. "But no, Dáin is pretty straightforward I think, and Thorin's favourite cousin. And nobody would dispute Thorin's birthright. The direct line of Durin sits on the throne Under the Mountain, no one else."

"But it's not that easy, is it?" Bilbo pressed. His mouth had a bitter, distressed shape. "They swore allegiance to the King's jewel. What if... what if it isn't found? In time for Dáin's arrival, I mean."

"In an extreme case and if we took the laws literally, yes, that would be a problem," Balin admitted, "but Bilbo, be reasonable. The jewel is somewhere in that enormous pile of gold and sooner or later we'll find it. It's just a formality."

"Nothing about Dwarves is ever just a formality," Bilbo joked weakly. He appeared unconvinced and soon he took his leave, trotting up the stairs. Balin shook his head. Poor lad.

 

*

 

Thorin watched the raven disappear behind the edge of the mountainside and then he let his gaze wander lower, on the endless desolation and devastation the dragon left behind. It would take weeks just to get the gates into working order, and months to restore them to a glimpse of their former glory. Then his eyes caught sight of a small figure approaching the tower and his face lit up with joy. They had made it - they had won the Mountain back, Thorin's birthright and Bilbo's much deserved new home. They had really made it. Sometimes, it felt like a dream.

Thorin rushed down the stairs and met Bilbo half-way, sweeping him into a hug that would make the shapeshifter green with envy. Just as he was about to put him back on the ground, he noticed the tenseness in Bilbo's frame, the feeble way he was returning the hug, his touch almost reluctant.

Oh yes, getting back Erebor was like a dream, but Bilbo had been remote and not entirely himself ever since. Thorin couldn't help but feel a bit hurt by it - even as he tried to be accommodating, because in his heart of hearts, he could guess the root of Bilbo's unease. This wasn't the grand Erebor of old that they both remembered - this was a vermin-infested tomb. Bilbo gave up his own cosy home for this and he deserved better. Soon,  _ ghivashel _ , Thorin vowed silently, soon there'll be a comfortable room in the King's suite and a balcony overflowing with greenery and then Bilbo will be happy and carefree and back to his old teasing and affectionate self.

"I brought you something," Bilbo reached into his pocket and produced a jar of nuts in honey. "It's not much, but it's sweet."

And this was also something that Bilbo kept doing lately: bringing Thorin food and treats, making him a soft bed, coddling him at every occasion. Thorin wouldn't say no to such a display of caring from his beloved but something about it felt odd. Bilbo wasn't doing it to share his comforts... he was fussing about Thorin and forgoing himself, as if the Dwarf was a wounded patient and Bilbo a nurse.

" _ Markhê _ , why are you pampering me so?" Thorin asked gently.

Bilbo startled a bit. "Oh! It's just - you're stressing yourself too much. I don't want you to get... unwell." His glance shifted to the side, as if he was ashamed by his own fretting.

"Taking care of one's intended is a big thing in Hobbit courting," he added in a low voice.

"My beloved Hobbit," Thorin said warmly, "in that case, you simply must let me take care of you as well."

Bilbo shot him a curious glance. "But you're the king now, what would your subjects say if they saw you waiting on another?"

Thorin grinned. "They would say that I hold him in the regard he deserves."

Bilbo laughed and for a moment they walked easily, falling into step side by side. But soon the moment passed and Thorin, wanting to dispel the gathering heaviness, added a joke:

"Besides, I'm not the King proper yet, anyway."

"Of course," Bilbo sighed. "Not without the stone."

"The Arkenstone," Thorin repeated. The name brought back a dreamy vision of the old Erebor. Great lords from near and far coming to pay their respects to the jewel, and Thorin was going to have that back. The respect of his neighbours as it was due, no more begging for scraps at their doors, no more humiliation of the exile…

When he woke from his brief daydream, he found Bilbo staring at him with an anxious and sad look in his eyes. Thorin didn't understand this. Then Bilbo excused himself with something Thorin didn't quite catch and ran ahead, back into the mountain, and the king was left standing outside, wracking his brain, trying to find a way to fix his consort.

Suddenly an idea occurred to him. Of course – Bilbo was insecure! They were now in Erebor where Bilbo last stepped foot in as an unwanted guest, only to be treated haughtily and cruelly and have his courtship refused. Of course the memories were now haunting him. Thorin could smack himself that he didn't think of it sooner. But better late than never, and now he quickly reached a decision: it was up to him to rewrite those memories, to make Bilbo feel as welcome and wanted in Erebor as possible. And it was high time Thorin completed his courtship, too. Gift of iron and gift of gold he'd already given so now remained something that would surpass them both…

Thorin nodded to himself and headed for the armoury.

 

*

 

Bilbo had feigned sleep the next morning when the Dwarves left for the mess room to have some breakfast. He wasn't hungry anyway. Now he lay curled up on his bedroll, in a corner sheltered from both the draught and unwanted eyes, and was rolling his little ring between his fingertips.

"So pretty," he whispered softly, "so perfect. Such a little thing and I already owe you so much. That pale orc, and those spiders and dungeons, and now the dragon... stay with me, little friend, I'm going to need you some more before we're through. You have to help me save the Dwarves."

Bilbo cast a careful look around and then again he fixed his gaze on the play of light on the smooth golden surface.

"They think they've won the mountain but it's only the beginning," Bilbo told the ring conspiratorially. "I have to save them if I can... whatever it takes. And if it's madness... then I shall do it against their own will, if I must."

  
The ring winked at him, and Bilbo smiled. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank everyone who commented on last chapter, for the support. You really helped me. Now you're welcome to tear into me for plot-devicing Legolas - though I believe I did better job than Peter Jackson! :)


	13. The Third Gift

The Elven warrior moved quickly across the expanse of the large cavern until finally she slid on one knee before the Throne in a fluid motion, her flame-red head bowed low.

" _ Hîr nín _ ," Tauriel said, praying that her impatience with formalities didn't show in the sound of her words, "I bring you the news from Lake-town: the Dragon is dead."

She paused, knowing very well that this particular bit of news had probably been already brought to the King by the guards and scouts patrolling the east edge of the Forest. So she lifted her head to better gauge the response to a detail she knew would be a novelty:

"The Dragon found its end at the hand of your son and our Prince, Legolas."

The guards around the Throne, normally as unmoving and impassive as the cavern itself, gasped in surprise and joy. But what confused - and yes, even disappointed - Tauriel was the way the King's face didn't move at all. However on a closer look - one she definitely shouldn't have dared to take - she noticed the tightness of Thranduil's grip on his sceptre and the minute, not entirely suppressed twitch of his other hand towards the left side of his face.

Thranduil kept his eyes open and yet to Tauriel it seemed that something in them shuttered down. After a moment of almost unbearable silence he finally spoke - in a voice so low that Tauriel wouldn't have been able to hear it were it not for the way the cavern echoed the fall of every drop with a tingling music.

"Is my son badly hurt?"

Tauriel frowned in confusion but answered readily:

"On the contrary, Sire. It transpired that a strange kind of magic was concealed in the blade of the sword you gifted him with after he came back from Lothlóries some years ago. A cold spell that had protected him from the heat of the flames. Your son emerged from the fight unscathed."

Again, her proclamation was met with silence. But Tauriel, now more attuned to the imperceptible signs revealing that her cold and perfect King indeed had emotions, saw the tiniest slump of his shoulders against the back of the Throne and heard the single breath leaving Thranduil's nostrils louder than the others.

The silence stretched for a couple of seconds and then suddenly the King leaned forward, lifted an imperious hand and commanded in a perfectly even voice:

"Give the orders to muster an army. We must go to honour my son's brave deed."

And with that, he rose from his seat, all traces of previous tension or subsequent shocked relief gone from the flawless grace of his movements, and began descending the stairs to leave the room.

"My lord?" Tauriel stood up and spoke, thinking that she must have misheard. "An army? Why would that be needed to celebrate a victory?"

Thranduil stopped and his head half-turned to her in that infuriating manner of his.

"You wish to question my orders?"

Tauriel quickly bowed her head. "No, Sire," she gritted out through clenched teeth.

"Do not test my patience, Tauriel. I have not yet decided if you're to be forgiven for taking my son's side when he decided to act against my will," Thranduil continued smoothly. "Or should I forget that you abandoned your duties as the Captain of my Guard?"

A stray thought flitted through Tauriel's head that her King was in all likelihood simply cross with the fact that his son had just slain a Dragon while Thranduil himself never managed that. Outwardly though, she kept her silence and with it also her ground, offering no more protests but also no apologies.

"You are young," Thranduil suddenly said, much softer than before. "The Dragon may be dead but the Mountain's enmity toward us is far from. We must press our advantage while the Dwarves are still few and don't have any other choice than to negotiate."

Tauriel nodded reluctantly. She had never had any dealings with Dwarves until a couple of days ago when she suddenly had to disentangle eleven of them out of the spider webs. She never had a reason to disagree with the general Elven opinion on Dwarves: that they were ugly, rough-mannered, uncultured, ill-tempered, narrow-minded and greedy. She also heard the rumours of the gold-sickness of the line of Durin: if there was a Dwarf of that line about to take back residence in Erebor, it might very well be a case of swapping one Dragon for another.But now she also sensed the usually short-lived softness in her King and took the opportunity to quickly present another matter that weighed on her mind:

"My lord, Lake-town suffered great damage by the dragonfire. The people are in sore need of warm clothing and food - please, mind that Erebor is unlikely to provide either after being uninhabited for so long."

To her slight surprise, Thranduil's reaction was immediate.

"Very well then. See that the carts are loaded."

Not waiting for her thanks, he dismissed her with a wave of his hand and left the room. Tauriel let out a relieved breath. It was strange, she mused: one never knew where was one standing with Thranduil; the King's favour was as changeable and unpredictable as his moods. Nodding to herself, Tauriel turned on her heel and went to carry out her liege's orders.

 

*

 

Thorin propped himself up on his elbow and with a gentle caress he smoothed a stray curl that had escaped the now slightly loosened braid above Bilbo's forehead. Bilbo's nose twitched but he didn't wake. The braid looked neglected and unkempt. No wonder, Thorin thought, with everything that was vying for their attention in Erebor; dwindling food rations, making at least some of the rooms habitable, provisional barricading of the gates to keep at least an appearance of safety inside the Mountain. How long was it since Bilbo last had the chance to look into a mirror? Thorin ran a careful finger along the dishevelled braid and made a silent promise to re-braid it first thing after Bilbo woke. Later; though, preferably much later.

Bilbo had just managed to fall into a deeper slumber after what seemed like a whole night of unintelligible muttering, tossing and turning on the folded blankets next to Thorin. Their burglar needed his rest. The tough living conditions had been wearing on him the worst. He was never exactly plump like most of his Hobbit kin but now the skin was pulled taut over his temples and cheekbones, and dark hollows circled his eyes. His skin looked pale, with blue veins underneath made stark with exhaustion, the natural sun-kissed tone of his skin all gone. And yet Bilbo swore that he wasn't ill. Perhaps in this aspect the Hobbits were akin to Men: changing their skin tone with the seasons, growing paler during the long winter months with little sunlight.

Thorin almost regretted taking Bilbo on the quest - almost; because at the same time the quest would have been over many times without the Hobbit on it. But for now the Mountain was a cold and hostile place and Bilbo, though never complaining, was obviously suffering with it. Just the evening before Bofur had caught Bilbo emptying his stomach after dinner, and when pushed by Óin, the Hobbit had reluctantly explained that something in the food must have disagreed with him. Since then, the Dwarves refrained from enhancing their meals with seventeen year old pickled vegetables and preserved meat pastes but that had left them with only cram. Well, a Dwarf could survive long weeks on cram and nothing else, but Hobbits were clearly a different sort.  

Thorin cautiously put his palm on Bilbo's forehead: it wasn't hot with fever - and that was a relief, considering their hasty leave from Lake-town while Bilbo had still been down with cold - but it also felt rather cold, colder than Thorin remembered his lover ever being, and sort of clammy to the touch. The clothes Bilbo was given in Lake-town, child-sized and of Mannish cut, didn't fit him - too open around the collar, too broad around his legs. They certainly did a poor job of keeping the Mountain's chill out of his bones.

Thorin's musing were interrupted by the sound of Khuzdul curses coming down the corridor. He gently wrapped another blanket over Bilbo's shoulders and rose to deal with whatever Bifur's approaching steps were bringing him. Judging from the angry stomping that echoed between the stony walls, it couldn't be good news.

_ " _ _ ‘Azghbelak du mibilkhagas ifsêlk tanakhi du mâ _ _ ," _ Bifur growled, thanks Mahal in a low voice, having probably noticed the sleep-mussed mop of curls peeking from Thorin's blanket. Thorin spared Bilbo's sleeping figure a last fond and longing look, mourning the gentle serenity of those few moments slipping through his fingers, chased away by news that immediately cast a shadow on his mood. When he looked back on Bifur, his face was already grim.

"Let them come," he said quietly. "Let's hear what words they have prepared, and then we shall give them a word or two of our own."

Bofur grinned and led the way back to the gates.

 

*

 

The half-noon sun shone upon the lands with all her winter might and the pale light rebounded from the hundreds of steel spears and silver-plated bows spread on the plain under the Mountain. On the makeshift rampart, Thorin and his Company watched as three horses carrying four riders separated themselves from the rows and strode forth. The Elvenking on his formidable elk, swaggering leisurely as if the lands belonged to him, the Mistress of Lake-town on a horse that had been clearly given to her to make a  better impression but she couldn't quite control it and she was visibly nearing the end of her tether before any negotiations even began, and a young Elf with disturbingly short white hair and a human boy sitting behind him, wide-eyed and holding tight.

"What brings you to Erebor?" Thorin called out and in his mind, he added:  _ Aside from those blasted gems of Lasgalen as we all well know. _

"King Thorin!" The Mistress called back, her voice going unpleasantly shrill with the force she had to put into it. "We came to demand what you promised, a share of the wealth of Erebor! And a rightful compensation for our losses and the damage our town suffered from the dragon you unleashed upon it!"

Thorin smirked. Such demands were to be expected - nobody in the Mountain had missed the big cloud of smoke hanging over Lake-town for days - but his distaste for the self-centred and greedy Woman had grown even more now when she didn't even have the decency to name the compensation first and her own profit second.

"To address your demands in the order they were presented," he announced (and out of the corner of his eye he watched Dwalin smirking as well at the concealed jab), "the exact share of wealth can be negotiated only after the wealth is assessed. However to share wealth between two cities should be based, as you certainly agree, in the negotiation of stable trade agreements that would ensure a steady flow of gold for days and years to come."

Balin at his side nodded to himself, a proud smile playing around his lips. Thorin's words were clever: just giving over a large portion of treasure would be of little long-term worth to Lake-town; they could profit more by partaking in the trade provided by Erebor.

Thorin drew a deep breath. "I also acknowledge your right for compensation. But I fail to see what Mirkwood has to do with any of your claims and why there should be a whole army lying at our doorstep."

"I told you, you should have stayed out of it! Now he won't talk to me at all!" The Woman hissed angrily to Thranduil, the words probably meant only for the Elf's ears but betrayed by the tricky echoes around the Gates. Several of the younger Dwarves couldn't hold back sniggers. Thranduil, for his part, didn't react at all, as if her words were nothing more than a midge's buzzing.

Instead, the Elvenking cocked his head to the side, as if extremely bored by the proceedings, and announced: "I came to demand a reward on behalf of my son Legolas, the Dragonslayer."

The Dwarves hummed in surprise. They didn't know how the Dragon had met its end but they certainly didn't expect it coming from that reedy youngling of a tree-dweller! Thorin squinted to take a better look at the Elven prince. Yes, he wasn't mistaken: there was the long-ago familiar hilt of  _ Orcrist _ jutting from a sheath hanging from his belt. Thorin scowled but couldn't help feeling grudgingly impressed. Especially when he didn't miss the rather obvious signs of the Prince's uneasiness and discomfort at the attention. Pity such a fine warrior had to have such a stinking scoundrel for a father.

"I do not remember offering reward for the Dragon's head," said Thorin. His next words were fuelled by his rising temper. "Had I known that the Elves harboured such a mighty warrior in their midst, I would have done it to entice him to kill the beast sooner. Might have spared us years of grief in exile."

Thranduil narrowed his eyes at the hinted insinuation that Elves fought only for reward and replied with impressive coldness:

"The fact remains that my son alone managed to do what your finest could not."

Before Thorin could raise a hand to stop the angry shouts of his Company rattling their weapons against the stone, the clear voice of the Elven prince cut over the noise:

"I wasn't alone! I had help. Smaug couldn't have been killed without the assistance of Bard, son of Girion." And he looked over his shoulder to give an encouraging smile to the young man behind him.

Thorin saw the Mistress of Lake-town scowl and then quickly put on a broad fake smile.

"That's right!" she said. "A part of the reward belongs to the people of Lake-town, too."

Thorin recalled what Bilbo told him one evening about his encounter with Bard and his mother during the feast; and he shared his indignation and distaste over the way the Men treated Girion's family. On the spur of the moment, Thorin decided to spite the greedy Woman a bit.

"I knew Lord Girion in the old days in Dale. Should Bard wish to see his true birth city rebuilt and assume his position as Lord Girion's heir, Erebor would be glad to help her former ally."

The Mistress didn't even try to hide her scowl now. Flourishing Dale would of course detract from her share, number of citizens, taxes and tolls from trade.

Suddenly, Thranduil bade his elk to take a couple of steps forth, looking imperiously annoyed. His immortal arse was probably getting sore from sitting through all this haggling, Thorin thought with amusement, and then the Elvenking called up:

"What you intend to do with that superfluous treasure in the future is of no concern to me. My army had not marched all day to hear you idly talk future alliances and in the end be turned away with nothing."

"Of course you did not," Thorin spat. "That would be too much like repeating history! Your precious army marching a whole day to achieve exactly noth..."

The words died on Thorin's tongue and he stopped breathing for a moment.  _ A whole day _ . _ An army, banners shining in the breeze, after a whole day of marching, arriving at Erebor mere hours after Smaug's attack… _

Thorin swayed on his feet, his vision darkening around the edges. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears, the unforgiving rhythm of the war drums.

"A whole day," he repeated, voice dark as the shadow of the Mountain. On the edge of his vision he noticed Balin - dear quick-witted Balin - cringing and slumping against the wall.

"I've been blind," Thorin shook his head, his tone low and wry but steadily rising and filling with anger. "I've been blinded by grief, and blinded by assurances of old alliances - by faith in honour of the Elves when in fact, the Elves have none - and never had!"

Legolas shot a quick alarmed look to his father who stood there, impossibly paled but still haughtily still.

"You never intended to help us!" Thorin hollered from the rampart. "The day Smaug came for ruin, you came for war! Oh, traitor - war is what you will have!"

Two of his Dwarves propped up mechanical crossbows over the parapet and aimed them at the King. As one, the front lines of Elves notched arrows to their bowstrings.

"You want reward? You want treasure?" Thorin mocked. "Keep the Dragon's teeth and claws and scales! They're sharper than swords and spears, harder than shields! Such a treasure is _v_ _ ery  _ hard to find!"

And with that last taunt, he motioned for his Company to retreat back inside the Mountain.

"But what about our compensation?" The Mistress shrieked, her avarice greater than her sense of self-preservation. Thorin had a sudden urge to pour gold down her throat until she choked.

"Go to your dragonslaying friends!" Thorin shouted back. "The Elves are no friends of Erebor and as long as their army is backing your demands, I won't hear a word of it!"

 

*

 

Bilbo blinked blearily at the Dwarf that had just entered the dormitory. It was Balin, and Bilbo would have sworn that there were a couple more grey hairs on his head than the evening before. He watched, head still muddled with sleep, as Balin bent down and began going through the Company packs. Now Bilbo shot up to sit, going from sleepiness to panic between one blink and the next. Had they begun to search the packs for the Arkenstone? Would they now be going through the personal belongings of each Dwarf? Had Thorin already grown so suspicious that he began to mistrust his own kin?

Then Balin straightened, in his hand a small bottle of ink from Ori's pack, and Bilbo bit his lip to hold back a sigh. An untimely sign of relief would surely attract unwanted attention.

"Oh, lad, sorry if I woke you," Balin said, shaking the bottle and peering at it against the light to see if it hadn't gone dry.

"I thought I heard shouting," Bilbo said. "What happened?"

"The people of Lake-town came demanding compensation, with the Elvenking in tow," Balin replied with a surly frown. "Him and his entire army," he added bitterly.

But Bilbo wasn't really listening. He heard about people - strangers - asking to be given a portion of the treasure and his darkened imagination immediately conjured Thorin's possible response.

"And Thorin didn't give them what they wanted, did he?" he asked, though, just to be sure.

Balin confirmed his worst fears by a tired shake of head.

"But why?" asked Bilbo, growing desperate. The Dwarf he once knew would never turn his back on hurt, robbed, exiled people! The madness must have progressed quicker than he anticipated.

"It was very badly handled, my lad," Balin said apologetically. "You can't really blame Thorin."

_ And why shouldn't we blame him? _ Bilbo thought.  _ Just because his mind is sick, he's no longer answerable for his words and deeds? Then someone must act in his stead! Someone must do something! _

"You know his temper, Bilbo, and how it can get the better of him," Balin kept talking and Bilbo would shout at him and shake him to make him  _ see _ \- but perhaps it was too late for all the Dwarves.

"I'm sure he will rethink the matter of Lake-town once he calms down," Balin finished.

"What if he doesn't?" Bilbo objected. "Will there be war? We're trapped! We have no food, all they have to do is lay siege around us and wait for us to come out crawling!"

"You shouldn't underestimate Dwarves, Bilbo," a new voice put in - and Bilbo whirled around to see Thorin whom he completely missed entering the room. In his hand was a small roll of parchment which he gave to his advisor. Balin unrolled it, skimmed through the contents of the message, sighed, murmured, "That means they're still three days away", and trotted off.

"Who's three days away?" Bilbo asked, folding his hand on his chest and putting his hands under his armpits. It was chilly today in the Mountain, and his hands especially tended to grow cold when he was nervous or upset.

"My cousin Dáin and his Dwarves from the Iron Hills. They answered my call and set out three days ago." Thorin explained. There was something eager about him, sparkling and determined, as if he was excited with the prospect of war. Bilbo hated it - wars, violence, all those nasty, uncomfortable things. He had to do something to prevent it.

"Come, my beloved," Thorin turned to him suddenly with a broad smile. "There is something I want you to have."

Bilbo nodded slowly and rose to follow Thorin.  _ He's going to the Treasury, to deck me in sparkly baubles like a Yuletide tree _ , Bilbo thought sadly.  _ Am I now just another jewel in his hoard? _ But soon he realised they weren't going to the great Treasury room. Instead, Thorin was heading for the armoury.

"Thorin," Bilbo tried carefully as they walked through the winding corridors, "I heard Thranduil had come for his gems."

"They are not  _ his _ ," Thorin scoffed. "He has not paid for them yet."

"The Elves say that he had," Bilbo said patiently. "Only that the Dwarves had not found it a fair price. Thorin, why couldn't you just give him what he wants and be done with him? To be magnanimous is a King's prerogative."

"So that every tree-shagger would learn to exploit the magnanimity of Dwarves?" Thorin asked sharply. "No, I don't think so. You shouldn't trust what the Elves say, Bilbo. Thranduil hadn't just underpaid us - he had insulted us as well. What do you know about  _ mithril _ ?"

"Just what Elrond told me about your beads," Bilbo said. "That its worth is beyond measure."

"There is only one place in all the Middle-Earth where  _ mithril _ is found, in the mines of Khazad-dûm. Moria they call it, a black pit in the language of Elves, a black pit indeed! For them, every mine and dwelling of Dwarrow is nothing but deep darkness, and you would think that the Elves are no more than small children with how they fear dark." Thorin sounded bitter and Bilbo listened, fascinated, nearly forgetting his current fears.

"Elves love  _ mithril _ and crave it above all else. But they wouldn't go mining deep for it, they wouldn't descend leagues underground and breathe stone dust and see by nothing but a flickering candle for days, they wouldn't risk crippling their limbs in narrow tunnels and dying in collapses, not them! That's what Mahal created us Dwarves for, that's what our endurance and strength is for, that's our pride.

"But the Elves would trade for it, for they loved it more than gold, more than gems. Always they would demand more! And when the mining for  _ mithril _ had awoken the Balrog, the Durin's Bane, and my ancestor was killed and our folk expelled from our kingdom, they would say 'The Dwarves were greedy! They mined too deep! They deserved the punishment!'"

Thorin's voice broke and for a moment Bilbo felt an overwhelming pity for the fate of the Dwarves. Always walking the sword edge-sharp line between fierce love for their craft and jealous greed over the fruit of it, always driven out from their sacred places by evil that craved what they craved, only more. Always having their pride be their downfall.

"But how does this tie to Thranduil and the white gems?"

"After Dwarrowdelf fell, king Thráin the First led our people east and colonised the Lonely Mountain. He wanted the newly founded Kingdom to be on good terms with its neighbours. Grand gifts of peace and goodwill were exchanged but the greatest of them all was a mailshirt of  _ mithril _ links, crafted for the Elvenking's young son."

"It was Legolas," Bilbo realised.

"Just a child back then," Thorin nodded.

"It's hard to imagine any Elf as a child," Bilbo said wonderingly.

"Just because they're immortal doesn't mean they're ageless," Thorin snorted.

"And what happened then?"

"Thranduil brought us uncut gems, white gems of Lasgalen he called them, the only precious stones ever found in the Forest. He wanted them to be fashioned into a necklace, white and sparkling like a waterfall of starlight. Perhaps he secretly longed to imitate the legendary _Nauglamír_ , a Dwarven necklace with a Silmaril set in the middle. And our best jewellers had outdone themselves. The result was like pure light frozen in the moment it breaks on water, a necklace worthy of a queen."

"I don't remember meeting a queen when I visited Thranduil's halls seventeen years ago," Bilbo said, confused.

"Thranduil commissioned the necklace decades ago, while she was still alive," Thorin sighed. "I was just coming into my beard back then."

"He must have loved her terribly if he wanted her to have the most beautiful necklace since  _ Nauglamír _ ," Bilbo mused. "It sort of explains the army, though..."

" _ Nothing _ can explain such treachery," Thorin growled and quickened his pace. "Or such brazenness as Thranduil showed us when he brought us what he deemed a fitting pay. Do you know what that was? My forefather's gift to his son, the  _ mithril _ shirt! Young Legolas had outgrown it and so apparently Thranduil had no more use for it!"

"But you say it was worthy, wasn't it? After all, those gems couldn't possibly rival  _ mithril _ , or so I gather from what you told me." Bilbo honestly didn't know why the Dwarf was so incensed. In Hobbit society, mathom in the form of fancy toys, shiny bracelets or nice-to-look-upon knick-knacks circulated amongst people, passed down at birthdays from one byrding to another. Nobody ever made a fuss when unwrapping the same thing for the third time in the last two decades. It was the thought that mattered, the gifting of a valuable thing, and if someone did grow tired of it, they would simply gift it away to the mathom museum in Michel Delving.

Thorin halted on the spot and stared at him. "How little you still know of Dwarves," he remarked, the anger coursing through him from retelling the tale lingering and making it sound like an accusation. Bilbo averted his gaze and swallowed. That had been a mistake. He was trying to pacify Thorin, to make him see reason, but it had only made him more angry. And if Bilbo couldn't get through the haze of gold sickness muddling the Dwarf's head, who could…

"For one, the things we craft are never worth only their weight of rare metal," Thorin said, softer now. "It's our craft, our knowledge and skill, our gifts from Mahal, that we value. And Thranduil wanted to pay for our craft with again, our craft! Secondly, he had tossed it at us as if it was just an item, as if the intention behind it, the promise of goodwill and alliance between my ancestor and him, meant nothing!"

"I'm sorry," Bilbo muttered. "I didn't think of it like that." It was true, in a way he could see where the Dwarves took such offence. But mostly now he just wanted Thorin to calm down.

"But for one reason I am almost glad he tried to cheat us," Thorin remarked unexpectedly as he resumed the walk. Startled, Bilbo followed, 'til they stopped before a large metal door that Thorin easily pushed open. Inside, a lantern had been lit earlier; rows of axes adorned the walls and various armoury accessories gathered dust on the shelves.

"It means I can now give you this," Thorin said and lifted a glittering mailshirt from a large wooden table. "No blade can pierce it. Perilous times await us and I want you to be protected."

Bilbo stared at the hundreds of tiny  _ mithril _ rings painstakingly interwoven together, the result light as a feather, cool and smooth like a serpent's scales, and supple like something made of silk, not of silver steel, and he instantly hated it. This was it, this was him being wrapped in precious metal, because Thorin wanted to  _ have him protected _ , like a mathom in his mother's glory box.

"I'm sure I would look ridiculous," he rasped on a dry throat.

"On the contrary, I believe it will be a perfect fit," Thorin said expectantly. Feeling like a turkey about to be plucked and stuffed, Bilbo began to peel off his outer layers.

"Thorin, you can't give me something this valuable..."

Thorin peered at him through the stretched out material of the shirt as he helped Bilbo into it. "Keep it, Bilbo. I know of no one who would deserve it better. You are my soulmate, my shield, my  _ zagrzarbê _ . This is my third gift, Bilbo. Do you approve?"

Bilbo smoothed the shirt over his chest. He could barely feel wearing it, so weightless it was. And yet he felt heavier than ever, his mind an inescapable loop of worry and his heart filled with dark apprehension. Did Thorin still love him - or did he now merely desire him like a priceless possession? Was Bilbo enough to cut through the sickness or was Thorin gone too deep?

"I do," Bilbo whispered. Then, in a flash, a thought occurred to him. If he could keep Thorin away from the gold, away from the others, even for a while... Bilbo forced his lips to curl into a smile and peered at Thorin through his lashes.

"It's lovely, Thorin. I can't wait for the wedding night. In fact..." he stepped closer and hooked his fingers inside the fur collar of Thorin's coat, "... I find I can't wait at all."

Thorin drew in a sharp breath and in the dim but steady light of the lantern Bilbo saw his pupils go wide.

"The others–"

"Can run the Mountain without you for a while," Bilbo undid the ornamental clasp that held the coat together and ran his palms along Thorin's shoulders and down his forearms.

"Be with me, now," Bilbo whispered, desperate to make it sound like a seduction and not like begging.  _ Stay with me. Don't go back to the Treasury. Love me more than the gold. _

He whipped out his last trump, nearly biting off his tongue at how ugly it sounded to his ears: "I'll be wearing the  _ mithril _ and nothing else."

The effect on the Dwarf was immediate - colour rose high in his cheeks and his breath quickened. Bilbo almost choked on how  _ wrong _ it was but it had to be done. He had to get through to Thorin, remind him of his older self, and for that he needed every lie and ploy - as long as they worked.

"I take back my previous words," Thorin said, gazing down at Bilbo in adoration. "You certainly know how to please a Dwarf."

Bilbo closed his eyes and let himself be claimed in a hungry, devouring kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul: courtesy of the amazing StrivingArtist
> 
> ‘azghbelak du mibilkhagas ifsêlk tanakhi du mâ  
> An army of fucking tree shaggers is coming toward us.
> 
>  


	14. The Arkenstone

High above the wilds, above forests and hills and wastelands, flocks of birds swirled against the evening-lit sky like a black river. Rooks and crows, gathering after a short winter day to roost together, circled tirelessly in the air. Their beady eyes saw everything that moved on the ground.

Every now and then, a bird or two would flutter down towards the campfires lit in the wilds like a river of fiery dots, mirroring the black bird river under the skies, stretching as far as the eye could see. They would hop to and fro, just beyond the edge of those shaky pools of light, snatching a bone thrown carelessly over a shoulder or a morsel of flat bread left unguarded on the ground. They would listen, cocking their glossy black heads, to the talk and jokes that were exchanged around the fires, and they would always fly off before some watchful eye could get a good shot with a pebble.

Just as the last light of sun faded from the sky, the largest of the rooks took off from the main flight and flew to the south, following a swift and straight route to the Forest.

When the rook reached the first line of trees, it perched on top of a mighty beech and cawed, loud and commanding. The wood birds weren't asleep yet. An animated chorus of thrushes answered the newcomer from amongst the branches, and whatever they had said made the rook ruffle his feathers crossly and croak in a condescending manner for quite a while. Finally, a large jackdaw cawed back - in a perfect imitation of the angry rook, which earned it another round of croaking and squawking - and then the daw took off east, for the Lonely Mountain.

It was dark when the daw reached the Elven camp. It circled above it for a while, sharp eyes searching, and then it squawked once, dropped down and landed straight onto the shoulder of the Captain of the Guard.

"What is the matter,  _ mellon nín _ ?" Tauriel asked, lifting her hand to better balance the rather large bird.

"Our cousins from the North have reported orcs on the move," the daw said in somewhat croaky but passable Sindarin. "An orc army approaches. Gundabad has been unleashed. Bolg, the spawn of Azog, is leading them."

If the news shook the Elf, it didn't show in the careful and loving manner with which she preened the daw's wings.

"How many?"

"Beyond the count of flight feathers of all of my cousins," the daw said apologetically, as if it was ashamed of its wild cousins’ innumeracy.

"Word spread fast," Tauriel said, brows drawn together in thought. "I had hoped we would have more time before the dragon's death became wide-spread news and everyone came to pursue their share of the spoils."

"They come for gold," the daw said, "and for revenge. Rumour has it that the Dwarves of Erebor killed Azog in the Misty Mountains."

" _ Agoreg vae, ni 'lassui, _ " Tauriel praised the messenger before she transferred it to roost on a pole of her tent and went inside to fetch a slice of bacon and a bowl of fresh water. Once she saw that the bird was well cared for, she left for the King's tent.

 

*

 

It was once again Bifur's turn on watch duty and the Dwarf was beginning to think that Mahal hated him. Why dide people keep coming and demanding to speak with  _ someone _ inside every time it was him there, only him and his ancient Khuzdul dialect, that might have sounded like the creaking of an old and beloved cradle to his ears but was woefully ineffective in relaying the words of insult and abuse he wanted to give them so badly?

" _ Zabdûna tatdaniya astû _ ," Bifur growled as soon as he spotted their burglar sitting on a bench in the mess room, munching half-heartedly at a slice of cram. Bilbo gave him a befuddled look and then shrugged helplessly, casting a pleading look around - but they were alone. Bifur hated this.

"Astrid," he repeated the name the Woman had given him, praying that he hadn't butchered it much. From the way the Halfling's face lit up in understanding, he hadn't. Bilbo slid down from his seat, sweeping the crumbs off his trousers, and hurried towards the Gates.

Bifur shook his head, eyeing the half-eaten cram. He should be going back onto the ramparts, to keep an eye on the beardless weed-munchers and to make sure that this Woman attempted nothing sneaky towards their burglar, but even seventeen years old cram was better than nothing these days, and Bifur was hungry. He shoved the whole slice into his mouth and walked back, strong molars grinding the hard substance with a satisfying crunch. If he only could crack through those shiny helmets of those poncy bastards as easily as he could chew on cram, Bifur thought with some amusement and swallowed the mouthful down just as he arrived to the Gates.

Bilbo was standing at the base of their makeshift wall and appeared to be speaking into one of the cracks left there - not wide enough for the Elves to crawl through but good enough for a talk, Bifur noticed. Bilbo was wringing his hands in a nervous manner and Bifur caught the end of him saying:

"... tried to talk him around but every time Thranduil is mentioned Thorin just sees red."

"'War-mongering traitor', as we all have heard," Bifur could hear the lady's voice from the other side, laced with irony. "It's horrible to think that this warmonger was the one who had brought us food, healing salves for burns, warm clothing and tents. Outrageous that this traitor was the one to alleviate the suffering of our people that you have brought upon us and then refused to deal with the consequences!"

"My lady..."

"Do not 'my lady' me, Master Hobbit! You promised to keep the danger away from us and the next thing I know, my son is facing down the Dragon himself! I could have lost him!"

"But you did not!" Bilbo raised his voice and Bifur mentally patted his shoulder.

"You are hurt, yes, and destitute, but you're  _ alive _ , and not dying of hunger or cold. The Elves had taken care of your most pressing needs, and with a little time we can sort out the rest. Please understand, lady Astrid, that this mountain is full of gold and nothing else! It's a chilly, barren, gnawed clean skeleton of a home. Do you want to eat gold? Clothe yourself in sapphires? You can afford to give us more time, just a little more. The Dwarves have barely reacquainted themselves with their long missed home, and already there's an army on their doorstep. Let them calm down," and here Bilbo's voice turned pleading, "let me bring up your cause without Thranduil breathing down your neck, and there'll be no reason to fight."

"No reason to fight? There is one much closer than you think," Astrid hissed. "You ask for time but you're not aware how little of it you actually have. The Elven scouts have spotted an army of Gundabad orcs approaching from the north, they will be here in a couple of days. My people are going to be caught in the crossfire, and without an alliance with the Elves, your Mountain and everything in it will be overrun."

Bifur let out a curse that would wilt the beard of Durin himself and clattered down from his vantage point on the ramparts. This was a grave piece of news. Thorin would want to hear about it immediately. Running inside the Mountain, he spared a brief pitying look towards Bilbo who stood there aghast, head hanging low and hands buried in his hair, pulling at the strands in obvious distress.

 

*

 

The greenhouses were a sore sight. Smaug couldn't fit his body through the upper tunnels and so the area wasn't damaged by his scouring claws but seventeen years of abandonment showed here perhaps the most. Stone could be scrubbed, metalwork could be polished, with a bit of dusting the whole mountain would soon look like new - but those dry, crumbling stems in dead soil couldn't be simply watered back into life.

The Dwarves never wandered here. Bilbo paced alone among the cracked clay pots in an endless loop, his feet wearing a path in the dirt, and muttered aloud.

"I have to do something. We didn't come all this way just to lose Erebor again. It's not fair. We need the help of the Elves."

_ The Dwarves will never agree to an alliance with the Elves _ , a voice, smooth and rounded like a precious ring, whispered in Bilbo's mind. It had once scared Bilbo, to hear a voice not quite his own speaking so clearly inside his own head, but he had since grown accustomed to it. It spoke nothing but the truth, anyway.

"But they have to, for their own good!"

_ They have all gone mad. Gold has turned them mad. What thought do they have for their own good or safety? What for ours? _

"I don't care one whit for my safety," Bilbo kicked one pot irritably. "Between you and me, we can always disappear, my little friend, and orcs won't cut the throat of someone they can't see. But those idiots...blast it, why do the Dwarves have to be so stubborn!"

_ For their own safety, and good, we have to act in their stead. _

"Yes!" Bilbo exclaimed. "It's not like I want the throne or something. I just want them safe, right?"

_ It would be for them. Everything for them. _

"Except that I can't exactly go and proclaim myself the ruler... oh."

_ But you have the power. We have the power, together. We can make everyone safe. _

Bilbo shied away from the thought. It seemed so big, and he so small. Just a little Hobbit…

_ Who else than you? A Hobbit with a generous heart, a level-headed, sound mind. A Hobbit always cares for everyone's well-being. Who should be fitter to act now? _

"And what if they hate me..." Bilbo said slowly, something at the back of his mind prickling uncomfortably. But soon the golden voice smoothed this disturbance, squashed that little thorn of worry, and blanketed his mind with the familiar comforting assurance. The idea seemed ridiculous even as he spoke. Why should they hate him? He was doing it for them.

_ They will love you. All shall love you. _

Bilbo could see it. Before his mind's eye, a vision rose, sharp and colourful as if he was looking through a gold-framed mirror. It was a picture of a prosperous Erebor, even more fabulous than he remembered it. The lands around bloomed, rich and bountiful, the desolation of Smaug all gone. The woods and meadows looked like a garden, breathing out peace, pruned into perfection. Every corner of it was neat and pleasing to a Hobbit's eye, and Bilbo knew that this was his work, the work of the wise and gentle Consort Under the Mountain.

Bilbo clutched his ring close to his chest and felt resolution pour into his heart like a liquid iron that is being poured into a mould. "Desperate times call for desperate measures," he murmured and walked briskly out of the greenhouses, down the corridors, not wasting any time, stopping only to check he wasn't about to run into any of the Dwarves.

Finally he reached the infirmary. Making sure that Óin wasn't there, he slipped inside and opened a cabinet the healer had mentioned to him some days ago. Stacked in a neat row of untouched glass jars, there were the sleeping draughts.

 

*

 

Night fell over Erebor, heavy with anticipation. Tomorrow, Dáin and his Dwarves should arrive. Thorin had not dismissed the threat of Bolg and his army but he was confident that with the reinforcement from the Iron Hills and the Mountain behind their backs, they stood a good chance. If the Elves would choose to fight, good for them; if they would stick to their cowardly ways, Thorin was at least sure they would not raise arms alongside the Orcs. They would deal with the Elvenking later - diplomatically, of course. Diplomacy was a thing Thorin was willing to indulge in when he had the longer end of the stick, and that he would have, thanks to Dáin. Tonight, the spirit of the Dwarves was high.

"Look what our esteemed burglar found!" cheered Bofur, rolling a barrel of ale in front of him into the mess room.

"Bet it's gone bad," Dori sighed.

"Or even better," Glóin smirked.

It turned out that seventeen years of ripening was decidedly good for Dwarven ale. Merry songs soon filled the hall and even young Ori managed to elude his brother's watchful eye and knock back more than one tankard. Thorin allowed himself to relax a bit. He chose a place to stand a bit removed from the others, leaning against the wall, drinking little and laughing even less, content to watch the merrymaking of others. He was never one to be calling the tune on parties, but now he enjoyed basking in the cheerful mood of the Company. Suddenly his attention was drawn by a gentle throat-clearing to his left.

Bilbo stood there, offering him a full tankard, lifting the drink up with both hands that trembled a little under the weight. His eyes over the rim of the tankard were wide and almost shy, and the innocent gallantry and a certain solemnity of the gesture reminded Thorin of old tales, where warrior kings would return home after a victorious battle and would be handed a goblet of wine by their faithful consorts. His heart filled with warmth at the thought and he smiled, taking the tankard with a regal nod.

"Drink, my love, for tomorrow will be bright again," Bilbo said, his voice small and tremulous, and Thorin was so moved by his intended's honest attempt at proper courteousness that his heart nearly overflowed with affection. He lifted the tankard to his lips, and holding Bilbo's gaze with a promise for later, he drank, draining it empty to honour the moment.

Bilbo smiled a little, ducking his head, and then returned to his place at the long table. Thorin was happy to see that their burglar seemed to be recovering. Bilbo no longer looked so small and skittish. The  _ mithril _ shirt gleamed tantalizingly under the loose neckerchief around the Hobbit’s neck and Thorin mentally congratulated himself on the idea - not only did it protect his beloved’s life and limb but also it clearly helped to assuage whatever doubts about their relationship Bilbo might have had. Their burglar was very nearly his old cheerful self, laughing and joking with others and, true to his Hobbit hospitality instinct, always making sure that everyone's tankards were full.

"Leave some for Bombur!" Bilbo had shouted at one point later into the night, swatting Bofur's hand away from the tap, reminding everyone that it was Bombur who drew the short stick tonight, saddled with watch duty on the ramparts while they feasted. Thorin felt pride on behalf of his beloved, happy to see that he cared for the Company, paid attention to each and every one of his friends. Perfect quality in a consort, Thorin thought and felt almost lightheaded with love.

"Ups! Ouch, so sorry, Bilbo!" Ori was attempting to wipe the ale from Bilbo's front after his rather poorly executed dance figure ended in him knocking over two chairs and bodily colliding with the poor Halfling, splashing his ale all over him.

"It's nothing," Bilbo laughed, pushing away Ori's uncoordinated hands. "I should've paid attention where my feet were taking me. Seems I've had enough tonight."

"But you had barely..." Ori frowned and lifted two fingers, squinting at them and then folding one into his fist, focusing on the other with a ridiculously thoughtful frown. "One!" he exclaimed a moment later, pleased with his discovery.

"More than enough for a Hobbit," Bilbo said firmly. "It's my turn to take over the watch anyway. I'll send Bombur in - oh no, Bofur, give me that, you're entirely too able to drain the entire barrel before poor Bombur would make it here so I'm taking this to him, thank you very much." And with that, Bilbo grabbed the full tankard from Bofur's hands, waved the rest of the room a cheery goodnight and left.

 

*

 

Bilbo sat on a large boulder, chilly night air nipping at his chest where his shirt was still a bit damp from his carefully orchestrated incident with Ori, and listened. Not to the happenings outside - the plain before Erebor was quiet, the fires of the Elven camp flickering some distance away - but to the sounds from inside. It'd been a couple of minutes since the echoes of songs and laughter from deep inside the Mountain had died out. Bilbo decided it was time.

Everyone in the mess room was fast asleep, sprawled on their chairs or snoring into their folded arms on the tables. Bombur had succumbed where he stood, slumped against the wall, the tankard still clutched in his hand. He had drank on empty stomach and the sleeping potion must have worked faster. Bilbo carefully went over each of the companions, making sure that they were breathing freely and their hearts were beating steadily. In the morning, they would think that they either had drunk too much or that the ale was over-matured.

Then Bilbo slipped on his ring and pulled out the coil of rope he'd hidden on the battlements earlier.

 

*

 

Thranduil swirled the thick red fluid in his glass and watched appraisingly the way it clung to the sides, running down slower than water would. He had long harboured the suspicion that the wine-merchants from Lake-town had been watering down the Dorwinion wine they were sending up the river into the Woodland realm, and now, when he could sample some from the barrels recovered from the ruined Lake-town, he was almost sure.

Closer to the woodstove, soaking up the warmth, sat the Mistress of Lake-town and that other Woman, Astrid. Much to Thranduil's annoyance, they were arguing, their low but snippy voices grating at his patience. When he finally deigned to lend an ear to their conversation, he had to correct his previous impression - it was the Mistress who did most of the quarrelling. The latter was mostly silent in a dignified manner but when she spoke, it had weight. Well, Thranduil mused, there was always nobler blood in the people of Dale. In another corner of the tent, Legolas was quietly discussing something with Tauriel. Thranduil briefly narrowed his eyes on them. It had better be matters of the upcoming war they were talking about…

"Good evening," spoke a clear voice in the middle of the tent. Thranduil blinked, belatedly realised the slip of the glass from his numb fingers and a small part of his ever-calm mind spared a regretful thought for the waste of such a good wine. The unoccupied space in the middle of the tent was no longer unoccupied - a Halfling stood there, slightly bowed in greeting, one hand in his pocket.

Tauriel's instincts, drilled into perfection, flashed on a drawn blade. The only thing quicker than her was Legolas who halted her hand just in time.

"Sorry about that," the Halfling quipped, nodding to the puddle of wine at Thranduil's feet.

"Well, well," Thranduil collected himself. It was Master Baggins, of course he'd recognised him. Seventeen years ago he'd hosted him in his halls twice and already at the time he had thought the Halfling remarkable. Now that he had witnessed the inexplicable manner in which Master Baggins had sneaked past several lines of guards, he had a better idea on how exactly the Dwarves escaped his dungeons.

"I see that congratulations are in order," Thranduil drawled, indicating the Hobbit's courtship braid with a slight incline of his head. Bilbo Baggins accepted that with a lift of his chin.

"What brings you here, Dwarf-friend?" Thranduil continued, voice gradually cooling. "Have you grown tired of the stubbornness of Dwarves? Have you finally seen reason and decided to join the right side?"

"Do you always offer insults to those who have come to parley? No wonder that Woodland realm has no allies," Master Baggins retorted without hesitation and Thranduil supressed a beginning of a smile. Oh, he liked it when his enemies had a spine.

Suddenly Legolas recoiled from where he was leaning forward in fascinated observation, drew in a sharp breath and then exclaimed: "It's you! The riddling voice in the shadows!"

Thranduil frowned - first at the confusing remark that possibly implied that his son had been keeping secrets from him and then even more at the small smile Master Baggins directed at Legolas, looking up to him almost sheepishly and motioning with his hand towards the short-cropped hair.

"I'm glad to find you unharmed... well, mostly."

Legolas knelt down on one knee to get a better look on the Halfling's face - Thranduil had to remind himself that very few of his kin had ever met a Shireling before. The young Elf still looked bewildered.

"I don't know what I was expecting," Legolas confessed with a hint of amusement in his tentative smile, "a Wizard or perhaps a Maia, talking to me unseen, calling me an Elfling... and I am still not sure if I should be mad at you for unleashing the Dragon or to be grateful for revealing to me the true value of  _ Orcrist _ ."

"Let's call it a draw," Master Baggins said and cautiously shook Legolas' hand.

Lady Astrid recovered next. "Why have you come, then, Master Hobbit?"

The Halfling reached into his overcoat pocket and drew out a bundle of cloth, slowly, mindful of Tauriel who still regarded his every move with suspicion.

"I came to propose a solution to this stalemate," he announced. "To trade... something of mine... for peace." Then he unwrapped the parcel to reveal the Arkenstone.

Those in the tent who had never seen the jewel before - the Mistress of Lake-town, Tauriel, even Legolas - couldn't hold back an awed gasp. Thranduil, however, kept his sharp gaze trained on the Halfling. His unassuming, rounded face, the face of an ordinary peasant, suddenly looked different in the pale shine of the stone. His features hardened, his voice assumed a degree of detachment and self-assurance, and also a seeping undertone of arrogance.

"This stone is worth the king's ransom," Bilbo Baggins said matter-of-factly. "The Dwarves won't cower from your threats, they would fight to the death to defend their own. They're loyal to a fault, and they will not back down from bloodshed, and they will carry on with this madness to its bitter end."

"Why would you do this?" Legolas asked. "You owe nothing to us."

"Mind you - I'm not doing this for you! I will save  _ them _ , and if this is what it takes... so be it."

"Have you grown so very fond of them?" the Mistress of Lake-town found her voice, and as usual, she blundered the first thing imaginable. The Halfling looked at her askance.

"We haven't exactly... advertised the fact during our stay as your guests, but I am basically married to one. So yes. I have grown very fond of them."

"The King's jewel," Astrid breathed wonderingly. "My husband once said that Dwarves believed it granted them the right to rule."

"That's - roughly speaking - about right," Bilbo Baggins shrugged. "Thorin is... a sickness has affected his ability to rule. I've taken up the task in his stead."

Thranduil kept his silence through all of this. A vague sense of alarm began ringing at the back of his skull. Something wasn't right.

Legolas kept prodding. "Is the King aware of this?"

"What do you think?" exclaimed the Halfling. "The cursed gold has driven them all mad! They would rather die than consort with traitorous Elves, and though I can't really blame them for that, I'd like to avoid the dying part! This blasted stone is the heart of Erebor. It's the most valuable item of the treasure hoard. Thorin..." The Halfling's voice softened and saddened. "Thorin wants it. More than anything. He would trade for it - peace, reparations, those white gems of yours, whatever."

Legolas regarded him apprehensively. "What happens to you when they learn of your betrayal? Because this is betrayal, you must see that."

Bilbo Baggins tilted his head as if listening to someone. It was an abrupt, almost reptilian move, and it reminded Thranduil uncomfortably of lizards. Then the little negotiator spoke, and there was something slick to his words, an evasive kind of cunning that Thranduil had never noticed in the Halfling before.

"They needn't know that the stone came from me. Thorin gave you Smaug's carcass - his scales, and teeth – as a reward, didn't he? You could say that you had found the Arkenstone in the beast's stomach. After all, dragons are known for devouring items they desire the most."

Legolas stood up abruptly, shaking his head. "Then it would be deceit. I do not like it."

The Halfling's eyes narrowed in anger and Thranduil noticed the odd, rapidly changing pupils. It could be the candlelight, or the flickering light of torches burning outside the tent, but Bibo's eyes seemed to Thranduil almost golden-red, a strange inhuman colour, as if something greater and far more dangerous was staring out through them. Shivers ran down Thranduil's spine when he found he could not bear looking into them for long.

"That stone is evil," he said, surprised with himself for voicing the thought aloud.

To his greater susprise, Bilbo Baggins nodded pensively: "Yes, he did say so..."

"Who did?"

"No one," Bilbo startled, blinking guiltily. The odd shine to his eyes was gone as if it never existed. "So are we in accord? Take the stone and negotiate in the morning. Peace can be had before the orcs are upon us."

Thranduil rose and strode over decisively, took the stone, wrapped in securely back in the cloth that came with it and locked it in the box where he kept the crown. He loathed touching it more than necessary, and somehow he felt lighter when it was away from his sight.

"We have a deal," he said curtly. "Go now, Master Burglar of Erebor, before your Dwarves miss you."

Legolas, as ever feeling it his duty to gentle his father's abrupt manners, offered the Halfling: "I will accompany you to the camp edge. How did you get through us unnoticed, is still beyond me..." They left, their chatter disappearing into the night. Both Women left as well, apparently glad that their issues would be solved soon.

"I do not trust this plan," Thranduil muttered to himself.

"My lord?" Of course. He'd forgotten about Tauriel, who still stood there, the ever-faithful guard, overhearing and noticing everything.

"It could be the stone," Thranduil mused. "But on my life, there was evil here with the Halfling, evil as old as I and older still. I haven't felt the likes of it for a long time..." 

 

*

 

Dawn broke over the plain before Erebor. The rows upon rows of Elves cast long shadows on the beaten ground, the frost-nipping wind shredded to ribbons on the spikes of their spears. The Company of Thorin Oakenshield watched the flawless spectacle from where they assembled on the ramparts. Amidst the rows of warriors, two riders strode forward, demanding to speak with the King Under the Mountain: Thranduil and Astrid of Dale.

Thorin lifted his gaze up to the sky, alerted by a distant, ragged cry. A raven circled in the heights, crying out twice more before it flew off to the East. The Elves took no notice of it and Thorin allowed himself a little smirk. Dáin's army was not far now. This was a good time to be confident.

"What now, traitor?" Thorin shouted at the Elvenking. "What do you wish of us now?"

"A good straight razor for his eyebrows so that it would finally match his face," Dwalin huffed loud enough for the Company around him to burst out laughing. If the Elvenking heard, his expression betrayed nothing.

"We have no need for wishes," Thranduil replied, his smooth voice carrying over the short distance with ease. "We came to tell you that a payment of your debts has been offered - and accepted." He leant forward in his saddle as if to better gauge the effect his needling would have on the Dwarves.

Their laughter only grew stronger.

"There is no debt," Thorin called out, "and certainly there has been no payment. We gave you nothing."

"And yet," Thranduil looked expectantly at Astrid, who reached into her clothes and pulled out a small bundle, "we have this."

The fabric fell to the sides to reveal the Arkenstone.

For the span of two heartbeats, there was a complete, breath-holding silence. Then the ramparts exploded in shouts of rage and disbelief. Thorin, for his part, stood mute, staring in shock. How..?

"This belongs to the King, you thief!" one of the Dwarves yelled and that finally woke Thorin from his stupor. Suddenly, as if his previous immobility was just the necessary moment to draw air to the huge bellows in the main forges deep under the rock, that little moment when the flames go low and seemingly die out before they are hit with fresh air and flare up like a firestorm, Thorin was incensed.

After all his slights against the Dwarves, Thranduil dared to lay a finger on Erebor's most prized jewel! Not only a jewel but a symbol, a token of Dwarven sovereignty - the very stone that all the Dwarven clans had sworn oaths upon, now degraded in the hands of an oathbreaker!

"That belongs to Erebor!" Thorin bellowed.

"And Erebor may have it!" Astrid called back, not cowed by the impotent storm raging on the wall. "But first, the King must honour his word."

Thorin was shaking his head, little abrupt movements as if they could help him stir and resettle this situation into something that would make sense. His mind frantically searched for a rational explanation - this simply couldn't have happened. There was no way the stone could get out of the Mountain, none of the Company would do this. All of them knew what the stone was worth and they were all loyal, Thorin was certain of that. This was a trick. A sorcery…

He didn't realise he was muttering aloud until a new voice interrupted him:

"No, it isn't. I gave it to them."

It was Bilbo's voice, brittle and desperate, and Thorin felt it physically close around his throat, pulling at his head to turn and face him even as he desperately didn't want to, didn't want  his eyes to confirm what his ears were telling him. Not Bilbo, it couldn't have been Bilbo…

Bilbo stood amidst the frozen Company, sad and odd and  _ impossible _ , with a feverish glow to his eyes and his mouth set in a harsh, determined line.

"I took it as my fourteenth share. I am willing to let it stand against my claim. I don't care for treasure - you can give them my share in exchange for the stone."

Words stumbled out of Thorin, slow and uncomprehending: "Why...? Why the Arkenstone? Why would you give it to our enemies?"  _ Betrayed, you've been betrayed,  _ a thought began to emerge in his subconscious, and Thorin tried to grasp onto the anger but all he could feel was stupefaction. Elven betrayal, that had elicited righteous fury in no time: Bilbo's betrayal was incomprehensible.

"I told you!" cried Bilbo. "I don't care for the gold, I only care for you! We're going to die here if we don't make a deal with the Elves! All those years you strived to get your home back and now you're throwing it away? I cannot let that happen!"

"None of us is going to die, Bilbo..." Thorin said slowly. It was true, he'd had the situation under control, for once he had the upper hand - until Bilbo went and handed the enemy a trump on a silver platter.

"Yes, we are!" Bilbo was shaking, tears rolling down his cheeks. "Can't you see? Has the madness taken you so completely that you can't see that we've been trapped?"

Thorin felt his breath coming faster. His hands curled into fists, feeling the blood pulse hot beneath the sweat-dripping skin. "I am not mad, Bilbo. I am not my grandfather."

"You are mad!" Bilbo screamed and waved his pointed finger around in a wild half-circle. "The gold has claimed you all! You left me with no other choice!"

On his right hand, Balin had found his voice. "Bilbo, lad, for Mahal's sake, Thorin is not gold-sick!"

Bilbo laughed through his tears, a wet and ugly sound. "Oh but he is..." then he switched to muttering. "Banning me from the Treasury so I wouldn't see how he all but lives there–"

"Thorin had not stepped a foot into the Treasury!" shouted Dwalin.

"You're lying." Bilbo stopped shaking and was now pale as a sheet. "You're trying to appease me, to catch me off my guard–"

"I haven't been to the Treasury room ever since we entered Erebor, Bilbo. I feared...." Thorin swallowed, "I feared that what happened to my grandfather might happen to me."

Bilbo pressed his knuckles against his temples, rubbing frantically and then shaking his head. "It didn't work, my love. But don't worry, I am going to take care of you..."

Thorin breathed out slowly. Lead weight had filled his stomach and each word uttered pained him as if he had to pull his living heart out of himself and sever it from his flesh.

"No, Bilbo. It's you. You are changed."

Bilbo lifted his head, disbelief making his face look utterly vacant. He was pale now to the point of looking like a spectre, even his eyes, hard and shining like moonstones. Something shattered in the very centre of Thorin's heart, in that hidden nook that Dís always joked was made of glass because of how transparent and fragile it was, and now Thorin's heart was full of glittering shards and bleeding inside his chest because Bilbo betrayed him, Bilbo had forfeited their bond and chose Thorin's enemies over Thorin.

"Traitor!" Nori suddenly exclaimed and Thorin saw his hand move for the hidden throwing dagger he always carried somewhere on him - and before he could react, he saw Nori's fingers slip on empty air. Bilbo stood there, something feral flashing through the small victorious smirk he levelled at Nori, and Thorin recalled how this very morning their heads had felt as if banged upon with iron rods... They had blamed the drink, but now Thorin saw the truth: they have all been drugged. The cup his beloved had handed him so ceremoniously, with a shy and honest smile... it was a poison.

"I'll kill you!" Nori was spitting with rage, throwing himself at Bilbo with bare hands. "I told you I would if you ever hurt him–" and Thorin was too slow, his legs uncooperative, but then Dori threw all his weight against his younger brother and caught him, struggling, in his arms.

"Don't! Don't be like Nábad!"

"Don't you dare throw that bastard's name in my face–" Nori hissed.

"No, brother." Dori was speaking low and urgent, willing his brother to listen. "Your father was an honourable Dwarf until he threw it all away for a petty revenge. Don't make the same mistake."

Out of the fog in his mind a memory came to Thorin - all those years ago, in the library, young Ori narrating the tragic story of his parentage to a newly arrived guest. A Dwarf that had killed his wife's soulmate over his wounded pride, and was dishonoured and exiled in turn.

"To kill one's soulmate is to kill a part of one's soul," Thorin whispered those remembered words. He could be better than that. He had to be.

He turned to Bilbo. "You betrayed Erebor. You broke my heart - but I won't allow you to break my soul as well. Get out of my sight."

Bilbo hadn't moved, staring at Thorin with a faint frown as if he couldn't believe that he just been banished. Thorin felt his nerves slipping. If he was forced to look upon Bilbo for one more second he was going to break down in front of his enemies and he was a King, he couldn't afford to show any weakness.

"Get him out of my sight!" he yelled.

Half of the Company took one threatening step towards Bilbo and only then he jolted into motion, casting a wild look around and barking out a short laugh, a strangled and cut-off sound like the whimper of a cornered animal.

"I can do that," he said, put a hand in his pocket and vanished on the spot.

The Dwarves gasped and cried out in fear. Down on the beaten road, Thranduil's eyes had narrowed into dark and piercing slits. A hum of surprise ran through the rows of Elves within view. Thorin just closed his eyes. He was defeated.

When did things turn so utterly  _ wrong _ ?

"My King," he heard Balin say, carefully, tentatively. Behind his closed eyes, Thorin laughed internally. What kind of a king was he? Had he not reclaimed his kingdom? No, not fully. Now he would have to accept his right to rule from the Elvenking's hands. He'd have to barter for it, like a lowly trader, he would have to buy out what should have come to him by right.

"My King, what are your orders?"

_ Gouge out the eyes of the Elvenking - and even that would be too late, he's already seen my shame. Gouge out my heart, it hurts so much I can't breathe. Bring me back to the day I stood with an iron rose on the edge of Shire woods and let me break it in two and bury it deep and never take a single step under the command of a Wizard with an agenda of his own.   _

"Give the Men a fourteenth share of everything that has been assessed so far," Thorin said hollowly. He saw Glóin's eyes widen and silenced him with a glare before the banker could raise a word of protest. Their assessment of the vast wealth of Erebor had only just begun and already the share Thorin had named would exceed any costs of rebuilding Lake-town tenfold.

"Give the Elvenking the white gems he wants so badly. May their beauty in his eyes be never spoiled by the memory of the treachery he committed to get them," Thorin continued, his sarcasm overcome by soul-deep weariness.

  
"Seal the Mountain after that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sindarin: Agoreg vae, ni 'lassui - You did well, thank you  
> Khuzdul: Zabdûna tatdaniya astû - A lady is waiting for you (translated by Neo-Khuzdul Translation Tool by DwarrowScholar)


	15. Into Battle

Thorin sat on the gangway that stretched over one of the deep levels, feet dangling above the abyss. The flickering light of the torch that he'd put up on the wall was enough to bring out the veins of gold running through the rock, disappearing into unknown depths. Lava and then water had worked on delving these vertical tunnels, the miners rarely came this deep. Thorin was passing small pieces of gold ore through his fingers, frowning at them, willing them to explain everything he didn't understand.

He heard approaching footsteps. Judging from the echoes, it was the entire Company. They stopped at the edge of his solitary pool of light, a cautious and respectful distance away.

"Do you think I could go mad if I stared at them long enough?" Thorin asked nobody in particular, more likely thinking aloud. "Perhaps then I would understand his madness... Understand what had called to him so much that he stopped seeing reason. But it doesn't call to me. It's just a mute rock."

He threw the nuggets into the mines and listened for the faint  _ thunks _ of their fall. Then he looked up to his Company.

"Is it done?"

"We began to load the gold onto carts," Balin said, "but then Bolg's army of Orcs arrived. They were faster than the Elves expected, managed to take down their rear patrols and launched a surprise attack from behind."

Thorin snorted. To think the day would come he would be amused by an Orc attack.

"Dáin and his army arrived into the middle of the fray," Balin continued calmly. "They didn't have much time to even look around before they had to join the fight."

Thorin felt a familiar itch in his fingers, the urge to wrap them around the hilt of  _ Deathless  _ rising and then waning just as quickly. It was all pointless.

"I bet he enjoys it," he said instead. "The old bastard has been growing rusty, never having much chance to bash some Orc skulls over in Iron Hills."

Balin sighed. "Thorin, the battle is a slaughter. Dáin brought three hundred foot soldiers and fifty war chariots. He expected to defend a mountain, not to be outnumbered on a wide plain with no cover."

Thorin stared ahead of himself, into the void. "What difference would eleven more warriors make? What is the King to do against all odds?"

"Mahal's hairy bollocks!" Dwalin suddenly exploded. "Little use of you here, moping in the dark! Truth now,  _ imrêkh-kharm,  _ and no evasions: do you still love him?"

Thorin was so accustomed to speaking nothing but the truth to Dwalin that the word tumbled out of him faster than thought:

"Desperately." He swallowed and ran a hand over his face. "But tell me,  _ kharmê _ , what good can be in love when it causes such despair?"

"Nobody turns mad overnight," Balin said. "It must have been going on for some time - but we've been so full of hope for the future that we weren’t paying attention to what was passing under our noses."

Óin shuffled his feet forth, clearing his throat. "I offered him a sleeping draught because he seemed exhausted to me - but I didn't think to ask why he wasn't sleeping."

Bombur confessed next, somewhat hesitantly: "I remember now... How could I've missed that he wasn't eating? I once tried to slip him something extra but I didn't make sure that he actually ate it."

Bofur muttered something and his face in the torchlight was red with embarrassment. "There was one time when we - erm, I mean Nori - made a rather, um, inappropriate joke about the gold... I thought at the time that Bilbo was just being prudish but now I can see what he must have thought - oh, Mahal..."

"And he was constantly asking me about the Arkenstone," added Balin resignedly. "See, lad, we're in it together. We all have failed him."

"Bilbo in his right mind would never betray us," Ori said with conviction. "The sickness made him do it."

_But_ _he's still answerable for what he did, sick or not_ , that bleeding, hurt part of Thorin whispered accusingly. Then it occurred to him - if Bilbo was to bear the consequences of his actions, he had to _be there_ to face them first. They could try to cure him - and then, perhaps, try him for betrayal, if he was sane or not - yes, they could fault him as they wished for what he _did_. But they shouldn't fault him for what he _was_ \- and what Bilbo was, was simply not strong enough. Thorin remembered well his grandfather - the strength of his will, in his prime years, the finest example of the line of Durin - and yet Thrór had succumbed.

Finally Thorin knew why he was feeling so wrong, what this dissonance was within himself besides all that heartbreak and hurt pride. He had made the wrong decision.

"Instead of helping him, I have cast him out," concluded Thorin, already dreading the next thought. Now Bilbo was out there, alone and unprotected, in the midst of a vicious battle.

Nori spoke reluctantly, for the first time since he arrived into the mines: "As you said, no one should despair for love. But one should fight for it."

" _ Yanâd Durinul _ _ batastafîn-nê tabi ubkhu', _ " Bifur raised his fist and Thorin again felt that itch in his fingers - but this time it took hold and spread, filling his wrenched out heart with hope.

"You're right, my friends," he said, standing up and clasping both Balin's and Dwalin's shoulders as he did. "We will fight."

  
  


*

 

Bilbo didn't remember how he got away from the Gates. He supposed that everyone was so eager for war, thirsty for blood and hungry for plundering the dragon's hoard that nobody noticed the oddly twisting and stretching rope that hung on the side of the battlements. Just as nobody noticed the circles rippling on the water surface of the moats under the Gates, spreading from where pebbles and dust were inexplicably kicked off the massive chunks of debris that lay there. Not a single eye noticed an invisible Hobbit weaving his way through the neat and impassive lines of the Elven army, every step taking him farther from Erebor and closer to Dale.

Bilbo stumbled through the ruins of the streets brimming with Lake-town refugees and it occurred to him to remove his ring only after the third person he collided with nearly trampled over him.

"It's the Halfling!" someone cried out. Wondering whispers and murmurs spread through the crowd and Bilbo could feel the tension in the air, like a sour taste in the back of his throat, a circle of faces so high above him that he had to crane his neck to meet their eyes – and they all seemed to look alike, big, coarse, dirty faces under rags wrapped around their heads, staring at him with hostility–

–and then a face emerged from the fog, clearer than others, and Bilbo found himself looking eye to eye with Bard. The boy breathed heavily, as if he'd just been running, and his serious dark eyes were full of concern.

“Legolas told me what happened,” Bard blurted out. Bilbo looked at him numbly. Something happened?

A large bony hand took his and led him off the main street, and Bilbo walked like a puppet, as if in a dream, until he felt a gentle pressure on his shoulders and all but crumpled under it, his feet folding under him until he sat on the ground.

"Stay here, Master Baggins," he heard the boy say, and then, in a smaller, unsure and pitying voice: "Everything will be all right, you'll see." Then he was alone.

Bilbo didn't remember how long it had taken him to suddenly jolt into awareness. As if waking from a bout of sleepwalking, he looked around, taking in his surroundings. He was sitting in a small tent that looked to be of Elvish make - right, Astrid was talking about the Elves providing the Men with tents and food when she talked to him at the Gates. There was a small fire-ring in front of the tent opening and the fire was still going, even though the low flames did little against the chilly wind. The crumpled blanket on top of a bundle of straw was still warm. It must have been Bard's.

Bilbo's thoughts revolved in circles, and the very act of thinking hurt. Every now and then a question emerged from that sluggish, lazy eddy: What am I doing in Dale? Why aren't I in Erebor? And then his mind would scramble away from the answer before it could be found, thoughts scattering and dispersing in all directions. There was a throbbing ember of pain buried just beneath the surface of Bilbo's recent memories and his thoughts carefully tiptoed around it, not bold enough to touch it.

_ You've been cast out. Banished. Abandoned. _

That was it. He wasn't at Thorin's side because Thorin told him to go away. After everything Bilbo had been through for Thorin's sake, the Dwarf still didn't love him enough to see beyond his own pride.

Hadn't Gandalf said, that time in Rivendell, that Dwarves could only truly love one thing? That Thorin would be protected from the gold sickness because his heart was already taken? Well, Bilbo sniffed and his eyes welled up anew, this further proved that Thorin never truly loved him. He wouldn't have become gold-sick otherwise... Bilbo did everything in his power to help him, and he failed. He was doomed to fail from the start.

_ This is not a failure. It can be the beginning. What is one Dwarf compared to everything we can still do? _

Bilbo stared at the ring between his fingers. It was so beautiful, breaking and bouncing off the light in a lovely way. It fit him perfectly, its smoothness wanted for no ornament, its lustre was the most precious colour in the world. It understood Bilbo.

_ We don't need the Dwarves to save this day, to make everything right. _

"How can anything be made right?" Bilbo sobbed.

_ Remember the wonderful garden of a land I showed you? This can still be ours. _

Oh, how Bilbo longed for that vision. But something about it wasn't right. Now it lacked for a person to share the beauty with. Bilbo felt his loneliness more keenly than ever.

"I'm no longer a consort to the king. I am a Hobbit, and very far from home."

_ You can rise above being a mere Baggins of the Shire. You shan't need anyone's permissions or pardons. I can give you power to make everything right, to bring order into chaos, beauty into desolation. _

Bilbo was so very alone, and the voice so familiar and comforting.

_ You can be the true saviour of the days to come, and they will sing you songs for eternity. Instead of a harsh Dwarf lord they will bow to a Prince of all good and green things, wise as Winter and gentle as Summer. The power is here, yours for the taking, you only need to extend your hand. What is one Dwarf compared to all that? Let him go. Choose us. _

"But I don't want to let him go," Bilbo whispered faintly and drew his knees closer to his chest. It was so cold here, in this pitiful tent, in this skeleton of Dale, in this wilderness on this side of the Misty Mountains. Bilbo missed the Shire.

_ He already let you go. Ordered you to go. Drove you away. _

"But he is important," Bilbo held onto a stray thought that somehow seemed clear, like a silver thread nearly buried in the fog.

_ No, we are important. He is inconsequential. Who is one Thorin Oakenshield, anyway? A King of Dwarves? You can be the King of Kings with me. _

The air became heavy with a coppery tang of anger, Bilbo could see it simmering around the edges of his vision. The voice grew impatient. And yet Bilbo still searched desperately for an answer. It was important, once, to know the answer to this. To know the name, Thorin Oakenshield.

He lifted his free hand to rub against his forehead, to dispel the headache building behind his eye-sockets, when his gaze fell onto his bare wrist. Under smudges of dirt, half hidden by the tattered cuff of his coat, there were letters. He couldn't read them but he knew what they said.

Thorin Oakenshield. Those letters were his soulmark.

"He's my soulmate," Bilbo said aloud. It was the most important, far-reaching, life-changing thing he had ever learnt, so many years ago in his youth. It rang sharp and clear in the tent, the first thing to break through the haze of whispers and overlapping voices he'd been hearing for days.

Fierce ache clamped around his skull, pushing tears into his eyes. A single shrill voice in his head was hissing in fearful hatred. The ring on his palm thrummed in disapproval and its cool surface no longer glinted alluringly, but threateningly. It seemed to expand in his eyes as if it wanted to suck him in, and Bilbo was suddenly overcome by fear. He moved his hand on instinct, throwing the ring away as if it was an ugly spider, and it landed right amidst the still glowing embers of the fireplace.

  
  


*

  
  


It was difficult to tell the time of day in the perpetual gloom around the cursed fortress of Dol Guldur. Gandalf could only guess that it has been some days ago when the Warg packs and the Necromancer's orcish underlings left the dungeons, geared for war. The ruin was deserted, at least of anything that still drew breath. The malicious spirit that reigned over the place never left, and never slept.

The air didn't stir and not a single living sound disturbed the silence. But the quiet wasn't peaceful: it was forced and oppressive, as if an invisible hand closed around the throats of the birds in the trees, as if the wind itself was suffocated under a heavy bell glass.

The Enemy was waiting, Gandalf knew. He could feel his will focused elsewhere, far to the east. The stone walls housing his incorporeal form creaked with the strain of his concentration. It was a momentary reprieve for Gandalf who for the past days had held onto his last thread of life with nothing but the power of his will and the grace of the Valar. This was the tipping point, Gandalf knew, this was the moment when the fates were at stake, the Enemy's plans ripened and he was on the rise, ready to pick the fruit.

And then, out of nothing, a piercing, terrible wail split the air and the very foundations of Dol Guldur trembled. Gandalf could feel it like a physical blow, a wave of overwhelming fury and seething outrage, and as he slipped into unconsciousness, a little spark of hope kindled in his heart. Something has gone very wrong for the Enemy.

The Wizard thought he was dreaming when he felt the hands, white and glowing with ethereal beauty, carrying his withered body out of the cage. As if in a dream he watched Elrond, silver-blue and powerful like wind incarnate, Saruman, white and deadly like lightning, and Galadriel, bright like starlight and terrible like the sea, crushing the Ringwraiths with the combined strength of their weapons and their magic. He had not enough strength to help, not even enough to protest when Radagast was ordered by Galadriel to take him to safety. He had to tell them about the Ring, he had to tell them about the reason for the sudden rise of Sauron, he had to…

And then he was carried away, knowing no more, while the White Council fought the Enemy himself, a soul-devouring eye wreathed in flames.

 

*

 

Bilbo’s first impulse was to reach for the ring again but immediately he snatched his hand back, surprised by his own reflexes. Was he really, right now, trying to reach  _ into a fire _ to retrieve a ring? A handy trinket, no doubt, but still - was he truly willing to sacrifice his living flesh for a dead piece of metal?

The headache was gone, the memory of it only a dull throb. Bilbo blinked against the sliver of sky visible through the tent opening. When did daylight become so sharp? And then the memories of the past hours and days began to fall into place, as if they’dwaited around his cluttered brain the entire time for something to give way so he would finally notice them. Bilbo gasped and jumped to his feet, nearly swaying with the sudden loss of blood pressure in his head.

What had he done?

He was trying to protect Thorin for so long that he had lost him in the process. He had lost Thorin’s trust, and quite possibly his love as well.

Bilbo rushed out of the tent, round a corner, jumped over a broken wall - and stared in horror on the battle that raged all around the city, with Orcs trying to break inside the ruins as well. Hundreds of them, dirty blades and serrated spears clashing with the long and bright weapons of the Elves, piling in heaps of slaughtered bodies under the axes and hammers of Dwarves. It was a blood bath. It was no place for a Hobbit.

Bilbo's hand found the hilt of his Elvish dagger and then he ran, ducking the stones and arrows and rolling under spears and swords, dealing out a good number of slashes with  _ Sting _ but mostly just running, trying to get closer to Erebor where the battle was the thickest. Even if it would be the last thing he'd ever do, he had to get there, had to speak with Thorin - if only for one last time.

Then a great shattering sound filled the air and the Gates disappeared in a cloud of dust. When it cleared enough for Bilbo to see, the Mountain was no longer sealed: a wide chasm opened in the protective wall and Dwarven battle cries, calling "To the King!" rose above the plain.

  
Bilbo watched as Thorin and the Company, geared in long chain mail and heavy plate armour, stormed out of the Mountain like an avalanche, crushing everything in their path. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul: 
> 
> imrêkh-kharm - shield brother  
> kharmê - my brother  
> Yanâd Durinul batastafîn-nê tabi ubkhu' - the sons of Durin never back away from fight


	16. Dol Guldur

"Make way! Make way for the King!"

Thorin strode through the crowd, the severe force of his appearance and the expression of utmost urgency on his face clearing the way more efficiently than the shouts of his companions who couldn't match his pace and fell behind. He walked as fast as he could even though his right leg flared with white-hot pain upon every tread - the fact that he could walk told him that it was a mere sprain, nothing torn or broken. The chest plate of his armour was dented and hanging askew and he was certain there were at least two arrows protruding from his back, having pierced the plate and the arrowheads now embedded in the rings of his chainmail. The gash running over the right side of his face stopped bleeding a while ago, Thorin wiped the blood from his eyes and that was that. His arms were slowly going numb but that had nothing to do with any injury and everything with the almost laughably small weight of the body he was carrying - for Bilbo was nearly weightless, starved, delicate, with nothing but his clothes for protection…

Finally Thorin found the healers' quarters, a large tent set up by Dáin's medics as soon as the worst of the battle was over, that had begun to accept the ever growing flow of injured Dwarfs while the last of the Orcs were still being dealt with at the outskirts of the battlefield. He swept through the opening, his nose immediately filling with the pungent scent of salves doing their best against the inescapable smell of burned flesh, and laid Bilbo down on one of the last free cots. Bilbo's head lolled limply to the side, revealing a wound covered with congealed blood, the skin around it purple with bruising.

One of the healers turned to him, took in the sight of his new patient and gaped. With a start, Thorin realised that likely many young Dwarves from the Iron Hills have never seen Shirefolk before, nor ever heard of Hobbits. The healer might have even thought that this was some strange kind of Orc.

Thorin grabbed the bead that he knew Bilbo was still wearing on a string fitting snugly around his neck and lifted it enough for the healer to see.

"He is  _ bâhu khazâd,  _ Dwarf-friend. "

"Is he, now?"

Thorin whipped around to look upon the owner of this new, gruff and booming voice that had just entered the healers' tent. Lord Dáin removed his helmet with a huff and flashed Thorin a slanted not-quite-grin.

"Not all of those Elven buggers are floating around all aloof and pretending you don't exist," he chuckled. "Some of them like setting their tongues a-waggling. They've told me what happened before all hell broke loose and we arrived in the thick of it."

He nodded towards the unmoving form of Bilbo Baggins and the healer that still hovered a few paces away, indecisive and clearly awaiting his lord's approval. Thorin clenched his fists.

"I would take back my words at the Gates," he said, loud enough for everyone who might have needed or cared to hear. Then he placed both hands on Dáin's shoulders and looked him squarely in the eye. "It could have been me, cousin. It could have so easily have been me. If it was me who'd been driven mad and now lay here wounded and in need of help, would you turn your back on me?"

Dáin looked at Bilbo and back to Thorin, his amber eyes under red eyebrows slowly filling with understanding.

"I see he's wearing your braid," he remarked. The braid that Thorin had put into Bilbo's hair in Mirkwood was in tatters now, barely recognisable amidst the strands matted with blood. Even the golden coin-bead had lost its shape, flattened by the strike…

"And my courting bead," Thorin nodded and swallowed. "And I will not take it back unless he wakes and gives it back to me himself."

"Very well." And with that, Dáin barked out orders for his best healers to come and tend to the Halfling. One of the younger aids turned to Thorin and asked:

"Did you see what happened to him, my lord?"

_ Oh I did,  _ Thorin thought,  _ oh how I did. _

_ He was fighting Bolg, engaged in one on one combat. The Gundabad Orc had gone berserk with vengeance, felling his enemies and his own Orc troopers alike in his haste to get through to Thorin as soon as he spotted him on the battlefield. He was almost as large as his sire was, towering above Thorin and in his long arms he wielded a jagged sabre and a mace, both deadly at longer range that Thorin could have hoped to cross with his sword. Only his reckless rage allowed Thorin to see any openings at all, his swings too broad and his attacks unguarded. And then Dwalin and Glóin, who up until then were covering Thorin's back, were separated from him in the skirmish and could not get to him in time when one lucky blow of the mace had Thorin lose his footing and land on his back. He had thrust up Deathless to block the mace swinging at his head and buried the sword deep under Bolg's armpit, making him roar and drop the mace from the now useless arm. But then Bolg jerked back, taking Deathless with him, and Thorin lay defenceless on the ground, watching the sabre being drawn back to deliver a stab that would skewer him– _

_ –when suddenly he saw a flash of dirty blue, almost quicker than the high-pitched cry of "Thorin!" and then a horrible sound, like the feeble wing flapping of a fledgling being throttled by a fox, a choked-off gurgling sound of air being punched out of a pair of lungs. And then there was Bilbo sliding to the ground between Thorin and his enemy, curled on himself and with both hands holding onto the blade that stuck out of his stomach… _

"He was stabbed," Thorin said, recovering from the memory. "In the stomach."

"There's no blood for such a wound," an elder healer pointed out, discarding the frayed belt and opening the coat with a confused frown. The front of the shirt underneath was cut through and she grabbed the edges of the hole, tearing it open - and then she gasped. Thorin nearly staggered with relief when he saw why.

" _ Mithril... _ " She couldn't resist palming the gleaming rings reverently before her sense of duty kicked back in and she rolled up the shirt to reveal an ugly blotch of dark bruising, skin scratched where the rings pressed into it too hard. She quickly palpitated the lower ribcage, lowering her head close to catch any suspicious sounds.

"Two broken ribs at least but his insides appear intact - I suppose when he wakes and isn't retching blood we'll know for sure."

Then she moved to inspect the head wound, sucking in a worried breath, and Thorin took Bilbo's unresponsive hand in his.

_ If Bolg was thrown with surprise at the sudden appearance of someone so small and so foolish as to stand between him and his prize, he didn't stay that way for long. Bilbo, winded and on his knees from the force of the stab, stood no chance. Bolg took one swing at him with his fist, as if he was merely batting away a fly, and Thorin screamed when he saw Bilbo's body thrown to the side like a rag doll, his head connecting hard with the rocky ground. The sight of his battered form lying so still where he fell woke something within Thorin, some reserve of strength he didn't know he still possessed, and he lunged after Bolg, yanked Deathless from where it was still stuck between the straps of Bolg's chest armour, and drove it right through the Orc's stomach and up his ribcage until he could see the tip protruding from the hollow of the Orc's neck. _

"It looked worse than it was, my lord," said the young aid again after he finished careful cleaning of the wound. The skin on Bilbo's temple, washed of blood, looked pale as paper now, and almost as thin.

"When... will he wake?" Thorin rasped. He hoped that it sounded more like a question and less like a plea.

"Head wounds are always tricky," the young Dwarf shrugged with the easy detachment of someone who had read this particular phrase only in textbooks and had never really lost a patient before. Thorin expected that this would change before the day was through.

Yes, head wounds were tricky. Even when the bone appeared whole, there could be hidden bleeding, undiscovered swelling... Thorin has heard of mining accidents where the Dwarves would crawl out of the collapse seemingly all right, only in need of a hot bath to wash away the grime, and the next day they would find them dead in their beds.

But Bilbo's pulse was slow and steady, and his fingers twitched and closed like newborn's when Thorin pressed a thumb into his palm, caressing him and whispering into the skin of his knuckles:

"Do not give up now,  _ markhê _ . You saved us so many times, now you must let us help you."

"Well," the elder healer harrumphed. "He's stable now, and I'm needed elsewhere." She motioned for the young aid to follow her and bustled off. Thorin looked up and realised that the tent was overflowing with a steady stream of wounded coming under their own steam or being brought in, those who could walk being sent back out with the most basic of treatments. All around him the air was filled with groans and whimpers and teeth gritting against wooden stick as the surgeons worked at resetting bones, removing arrowheads, and sealing veins in open wounds with hot iron wire.

Then a familiar face appeared in the tent opening, and it took Thorin several seconds to recognise Dwalin under all the dust and black - not his own, then - blood. White teeth flashed out of the disgusting cake in a relieved grin when the warrior saw Thorin was all right and then Dwalin noticed Bilbo - and cursed so heartily that a passing healer paused and tutted at him.

"What has he got himself into?"

"He took a blow that would have killed me," Thorin admitted quietly.

Dwalin came to stand at Thorin's side, looking down at their burglar. Much to Thorin's relief, there wasn't any resentment or grudge in his eyes.

"His is a peculiar madness when you think of it," Dwalin remarked at last. "Old Thrór went batty because of the gold - he would've rather died there in the Treasury when Smaug came than leave it."

"He loved it too much," Thorin said. He remembered his grandfather's vicious struggle to stay with the gold, with the Arkenstone - Thorin had to bodily drag him out of the Mountain.

"But this little fellow would rather die than see you drop," Dwalin continued. "I wager that be it not for the whole mess with the Elves and Orcs, we would've never noticed that something was wrong with him. He'd be just a tad overprotective of you and maybe jealous as a cat but he wouldn't exactly be sticking out of line in a mountain full of Dwarves in that regard."

"Please, Dwalin..." Thorin whispered. That line of thought hurt too much to follow. There was a whole bunch of uncomfortable and vaguely threatening questions lying in ambush that way. How far back could they track the signs of Bilbo's sickness? Was anything they ever shared left unspoiled by it? Would Bilbo be free of it ever again? Thorin didn't want to imagine the case if not.

"By the way, you've got a mountain full of Dwarves to run, my King," Dwalin grinned unexpectedly and shoved Thorin hard in the shoulder.

"Will you stay by him?" Thorin asked in a low voice. "Half of Dáin's people already seem to know what transpired before the battle..."

Dwalin nodded, straightening his shoulders, and moving to stand by the bed, well out of the way of the busy healers. He leaned casually on his warhammer and assumed an expression saying that he would be more than happy to introduce said warhammer to the skull of anyone who'd as much as look askance at the Halfling.

Thorin gave him a grateful smile and with a heavy heart, he turned to leave. This battle - regaining consciousness - was one that Bilbo had to fight for himself, and just like the healers, Thorin was now needed elsewhere.

 

*

 

A couple of hours passed. On the blood-soaked plain, smoke began to rise from the piled up mounds of Orc and Warg carcasses. The bodies of fallen Dwarves were brought inside the mountain to be laid to stone, and ethereal Elven laments floated on the wind in mourning of their dead. Thorin was relieved to learn that every member of his Company was accounted for, their injuries mostly superficial. Bilbo slept on.

"He should be awake by now," Óin murmured under his breath to Balin after he checked Bilbo's breath and heart rate for the third time in the last twenty minutes. Thorin heard him anyway.

"We can do no more," the head healer of Dáin's troops said with finality. They'd tried talking to him, touching his cheeks, they gave him smelling salts, poured tonics down his throat. Nothing worked in bringing Bilbo any closer to the land of the waking.

One by one, the Dwarves of Thorin's Company took their turn to keep vigil at their burglar's bed. When Ori came by, the knees of his trousers were caked in fresh mud and his boots were soaked through. He pressed something into Bilbo's palm and closed his fingers around it.

"What is it?" Thorin asked, peering around Ori's shoulder at the wilting tiny leaves of dark green colour that stuck out between Bilbo's fingers. Ori fidgeted in his seat.

"Hobbits talk with flowers," he said. "Just like we do with gems, I think... I asked him one evening, it was before we got to the Trollshaws - seems so long ago now... and I wrote down everything in my journal. And then I noticed that there were still patches of growing things down where the river runs into the lake so I went to look." He cast a sour look at his wet boots.

"Not that much grows after Durin's Day," he chuckled then. "But I found a hazel thicket, so I thought it could count as filbert nuts... and that green weed is called yarrow. It's not a flower but it's sturdy, it grows throughout the year."

Ori looked sadly at Bilbo's unmoving face. The Hobbit looked so serene, and so very far away.

"I figured that when he wakes, it'd be nice for him to know we aren't angry with him... at least as angry as we were," he corrected himself. There'd been a rift in the Company on the question of Bilbo's treason and the consequences of it, and Dori, Nori and Glóin in particular weren't exactly inclined to forgive him any time soon.

"Filbert nuts mean reconciliation, and yarrow is for healing," Ori added. Thorin clasped his shoulder wordlessly and Ori gave him a small smile.

"I should be going. Dori's going to throw a fit over my boots and..."

Thorin nodded. There wasn't much they could do anyway.

On his way out, Ori almost collided with a tall boy with a dishevelled mane of dark hair and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His face was smudged with dirt, he held one arm a bit awkwardly to his side and he sported a split lip but Thorin immediately recognised him as Bard, the son of the former Lord of Dale.

"Oh by Valar," Bard breathed out when his eyes landed on Bilbo, "they told me he was here– please tell me he'll be all right."

Thorin couldn't make himself say anything. The silence dragged on and then Balin said with a soothing smile: "Right as rain, you'll see. Just needs a bit of rest."

Perhaps it was the jovial exaggeration or the too long pause before it but from the widening of the boy's eyes and his gaze flickering between the two Dwarves they knew that Bard wasn't fooled. The lad bit his lip and his face, usually so defiant, crumpled in earnest sorrow.

"It's my fault," he lamented, "he came to Dale, looking so dreadful, and I showed him to my tent, and left him alone because I wanted to fight– I should've looked after him."

"Do not blame yourself," Thorin managed at last.

"Thorin's right, lad," Balin added. "Despite being so small Bilbo's not a child. He knows how to fend for himself and he knew what he was doing when he ventured into the battle."

Was that the truth? Thorin wondered. Or was it the madness that drove Bilbo out of relative safety and right in front of Bolg's cleaver?

"I can... I can fetch Legolas," Bard said hesitantly, questioningly, but with something hopeful in his voice. "The Elves are good at healing, aren't they?"

One of the Dwarven healers in earshot scoffed, muttering something in Khuzdul that Thorin was glad the young Man wouldn't understand. But Thorin considered the suggestion. Grudges aside, he had to admit that Elven lore on healing indeed was superior to that of the Dwarves, and perhaps they had some books on the healing of Halflings... He nodded his assent and Bard bolted out of the tent, eager to drag his newly-made Elven friend into the Dwarven tent by force if needed.

It turned out that Legolas came willingly as soon as he heard from Bard. Even more of a surprise was the towering figure of Thranduil that appeared in the tent after him. Dwalin immediately bristled and even some of the healers made to grab their sharp surgical instruments, eyeing the Elvenking with unmasked threats in their suspicious glares.

"I am no healer," Legolas said, wasting no time with polite pleasantries. "But my father is."

The protective circle of Dwarves around Bilbo opened a reluctant crack and Thranduil moved to slip neatly through it, gazing down at Bilbo's unconscious form. He still wore his mail, its silver-steel shine marred by thin streaks of black blood, and his expression betrayed nothing.

Once again, like seventeen years ago, when he negotiated on behalf of his desolate people for a safe passage through Mirkwood, Thorin had to swallow down his pride and contempt for the Elvenking. But this time he had no priceless sword, nothing that the Elf would desire, to trade for his goodwill. Nothing but begging.

"Help him," he rasped, and the break of his deep his voice pleaded more than his words ever could.

Thranduil stood still for a long moment, his frosted grey eyes impassive, and then he turned away. "I would not heal him even if I could," he said coolly, barely pausing in his motion towards the exit, not even glancing at Thorin or anyone else.

Thorin gasped as if he’d received a physical blow. He expected taunts and mockery, was fine with having his bleeding heart prodded at with cruel words, was ready to bargain and give in to the most ridiculous demands - anything but this cold dismissal. Ori - ever wearing his courageous heart on his sleeve - let out a foul curse nearly at the same moment that Dwalin did. Even Legolas gaped, aghast, and attempted to stop his father with a hand on his arm and a plaintive word: " _ Ada... _ "

Thorin threw himself in front of Thranduil, blocking his exit.

"You, of all people, should know the pain of the loss of a loved one," he began, not caring for the roughness of his voice and how much it showed of the cracks that began to spread through his composure.

"Is there no mercy in your heart at all? Cannot you look beyond your hatred for us, for once?" And Thorin dug the tip of his sword sheath into the earthen ground, bracing himself on it and getting ready to drop to his knees.

A pair of hands on his shoulders stopped him, pushing him upright - the touch almost gentle but not a second longer than necessary. Thranduil's face could well be carved from stone but there was something behind the frost curtain in his eyes, something that almost looked like pain - very old, hidden, hallowed pain.

"You may hate me, Thorin Oakenshield, as you already do, but one day you will understand that it was more merciful to let him pass like this, in peaceful sleep."

"He's not gone yet!" Thorin pleaded. "He can still wake!"

"What will wake in this body might not be your Hobbit anymore."

The angry and confused hum that rose among the Dwarves after this proclamation was interrupted by an agitated stream of Sindarin from Legolas' mouth. The young Elf's face was sincere and urgent but whatever he might have been saying in favour of Bilbo, he was unceremoniously cut off by one regal gesture of Thranduil's hand.

"No, my son. You haven't seen his eyes." The Elvenking shuddered faintly and just as quickly adopted his eternal aloofness, drawing himself to his full height and draping a disdainful air over himself like a veil. "All foul things will come forth in time. I will not lend my hand in enabling this evil."

Thorin was still shaking his head, small, minute movements from side to side, when everyone's attention was abruptly drawn to a commotion happening outside the healers' quarters. Multiple voices could be heard over the stomping of horse hooves, asking for the king, and then a loud voice - carrying on a commanding note but nevertheless too high to belong to a Man - ordered: "Take me to him, then." The flaps of the tent opening were drawn to the side once more and in strode a tall Woman in leather armour and a long bow across her back. She held her dark grey helmet against her side and under the free fall of her dark hair Thorin recognised the face of Gilraen, chieftain of the Dúnedain.

"Well met, my lords," she said briskly. "Forgive me for not announcing our presence sooner; I have only just finished gathering my men after the battle. We came with an Elven host from Rivendell." She tossed her head in the direction of outside where some of the Dúnedain could be seen, milling around, and many Elves from Rivendell, their dark hair and paler complexions making them very distinguishable from their Silvan cousins.

Gilraen then turned towards Thranduil and gave him a token of a polite bow. "Lord Elrond sends his regards. He had a warning about evil stirring in Gundabad and he foresaw that our help would be needed."

"Your help was most welcome," Legolas said and bowed - his graciousness even more apparent when compared to Thranduil's stiff spine and vaguely irritated face. "I would say that you have arrived right in time to turn the tide of the battle."

The two leaders regarded each other with barely hidden animosity on either side. Thranduil's expression was hard to guess - was it jealousy? The King of the Woodland Realm was probably envious of Elrond's lineage and status, Thorin thought. As to Gilraen and the obvious disdain in her demeanor, she probably didn't like isolationists. Thorin remembered that the Rangers, as Bilbo called them, had a long and ardent history of protecting Shire borders without the good Hobbits being even aware of it at large.

"I would have you relay my gratitude to the  _ peredhel _ ," Thranduil intoned and left without any more ado.  

"Well," Gilraen shrugged and if she wasn't so ladylike, Thorin would bet she would have spat after Thranduil, "Elrond  _ does _ call himself Halfelven. I hadn't yet heard anyone using that as an insult, though."

Then she smiled at Thorin. "I also came to offer our skills and knowledge as healers. The Dúnedain are blessed with a power of healing and lord Elrond's sons have been well trained in the knowledge of his father. Are you hurt, my friend, that we meet among the wounded?"

"I am not, my lady," Thorin said, relief and hope bubbling up his chest and making it hard to form words. "But my soulmate is. His body is on the mend but he will not wake..."

Gilraen moved to kneel beside Bilbo's bed and listened to Thorin's hasty account of everything that had befallen him - starting with the disaster on the ramparts. It was not a physical injury that Bilbo suffered there but Thorin believed it could have a grave bearing on his current state.

"Bilbo," she murmured, covering the Halfling's forehead with the palm of her hand, and closing her eyes. " _ Lasto beth nín, Bilbo... Tolo dan na ngalad. _ "

When she opened her eyes the next moment, they were troubled. "I might need some kingsfoil, if you have it," she said. The Dwarven healers looked at each other with helpless question in their eyes. Gilraen pursed her mouth, thinking, and then she spied Legolas lingering behind the tight circle of Dwarves.

"You, my friend!" she pointed at him. "Do your healers have any  _ athelas _ ?"

Legolas' eyes lit up in understanding. "Ah, of course! I'll fetch some." Then he grabbed the hand of Bard, who up to now stood there a bit awe-struck by the presence of so many legendary people, and dragged him out of the tent.

"Everyone who does not need to be here, out, too," Gilraen called and by some miracle Thorin couldn't even begin to understand, everyone obeyed her. Dáin's healers returned to their patients and soon it was just him and her above a still deeply asleep Bilbo.

"The reason he's not waking," she began in a low voice meant just for Thorin's ear, "is that there's a shadow lying on his mind. I cannot see what it is but it seems to be leeching on his spirit... It's as if his mind is clinging to something out of this world and cannot return to the world of living - but whether because he’s not allowed to or because he alone doesn't want to, I do not know."

 

*

 

In the crumpling ruins of Dol Guldur, the battle against Sauron dragged on for hours and still there was no resolution in sight. Even incomplete as he was, after the loss of his Ring, and with only a fraction of his former power, the Enemy was proving to be a match for the joined powers of the White Council. Elrond and Saruman were almost spent, their spells withered like dust thrown into the wind, and still the flaming eye persisted, breaking their enchantments one by one, bouncing back every time they succeeded in pushing him even a little bit away. Elrond had a growing feeling that something must have been anchoring him to this plane, replenishing his strength.

Then Galadriel, who had a while ago fallen to the ground to gather her strength, summoned the last remnants of her will to transform herself. She stood up, tall and terrifying, her once golden hair dark and lashing in the wind like ropes of seaweed, her form filled with crashing waves of power. Her face shone so bright that any living eye had to paint darkness over her image in order to protect itself, and Elron was struck by the sight - it had been so long that the true power of Noldor was last revealed in Middle Earth. She at last banished Sauron, uprooting him from this place and driving him back into Mordor whence he came, and then she collapsed.

In a tent under Lonely Mountain, filled with the warm half-light of the setting sun, Bilbo Baggins slowly woke from his sleep. 


	17. Many Returns

Bilbo sat in a small tent beside the healers' quarters, which he'd been moved to as soon as the healers proclaimed him able to walk. It was private, just him and the wintry dusk of the falling night for company, a narrow travel cot with a blanket and a water jug - otherwise it was bare, not even a candlestick to dispel Bilbo's gloom.

No one was with him but he could hear a lot of talk going on outside. Dwarves could be grumpy and secretive but they were also perfectly able to talk your head off when the mood struck them, and it seemed that after a victorious battle, everyone was generous with gossip and eager for more. Bilbo's head still buzzed when he moved it too quickly but there was nothing wrong with his ears, and so he listened - and in time, he had a clear account of nearly everything that transpired while he slept.

The truce to which he’d nearly lost his mind (and probably the friendship of his Dwarves, as well), had turned to shambles as soon as the battle broke out. The only thing he succeeded in was screwing up the whole situation - depriving the Dwarves of their hard-won advantage and playing everything into the hands of the Elves.

The armistice-called-peace that currently ruled over the plains was by no means Bilbo's doing. It was the Elves of Rivendell who proved to be excellent negotiators - probably because they didn't have a speck of interest in these parts of the world. The Woodland realm readily agreed to the terms the peace treaty proposed - mainly because the arrival of the Rivendell host had saved Thranduil's army from decimation - and the Lake-Men, the new King Under the Mountain and even Dáin from the Iron Hills had agreed to just sign the damn thing and leave this mess behind them as soon as possible.

What gold the Company had managed to give over to the Men before the surprise Orc attack had been stolen by the Mistress. She’d attempted to sneak through Dale with it and disappear on a boat over the Long Lake - but the Orcs had sniffed her out. The rest was rather gory.

Some of the people who wanted to rebuild Dale had elected Astrid as their representative. Bilbo thought it was a reasonable choice. Her son was not yet of age, though already gaining quick fame as the one who helped to slay the Dragon, and he and the Elvenking's son were, according to gossip, thick as thieves. Bilbo hoped that Bard was all right. The youth had treated him with kindness and mercy... perhaps he would allow Bilbo to settle down in Dale. Erebor wasn't likely to open her gates to traitors and Bilbo's old home in the Shire was out of reach, given over to his cousin Drogo and the new generation of Baggins family.

Bilbo kept shifting, trying to find a position that wouldn't put pressure on his broken ribs, and used what little canvas-filtered light from outside there was to stare at three little nuts in his palm, juggling them in between his fingers. They couldn't have meant what they would have meant to a Hobbit; someone of the Dwarves was probably only trying to be kind by giving him anything that grew, similarly as they would put pieces of rock in the hands of delirious Dwarves to ground their fever-wracked spirits. If he deserved anything according to the language of Hobbits, it would have been whortleberry - for treachery - but he supposed whortleberry was hard to find in these parts, especially as the year drew to its close.  

Waiting was awful - and yet Bilbo dreaded the moment the wait would be over. He saw Dwalin as soon as he woke, standing guard in the healers' tent, but the warrior hadn't uttered a word to him. He'd helped to walk Bilbo to his new abode, ordered a passing by soldier to inform the King - but other than that, nothing. Bilbo supposed he had to wait for the King's judgment.

The sound of heavy-booted footsteps approaching outside interrupted his brooding. Bilbo saw a blur of soft light through the fabric of his tent - heard a couple of indiscernible words being exchanged in low voices - and then the flaps of the tent opening were drawn to the side and Thorin entered, head bowed to slip under the low ceiling. He put a lantern with a spluttering tallow candle inside into a corner and then he slowly straightened, looking straight at Bilbo with no hesitation, no attempt to buy a little time by avoidance. Bilbo's heart shrank in his chest.

A multitude of emotions seemed to flicker in Thorin's eyes in the unstable light of the lantern before their expression settled on cautious neutrality. The King waited, and Bilbo didn't know what to say.

_ I am relieved to see you unharmed? _ For he was - a part of him that wasn't weighed down by guilt was absolutely floating with relief, giddy with gratitude to the Valar. The last he’d registered before his world blacked out was Bolg throwing the useless lump of his body aside to advance upon Thorin. Bilbo's throat still clenched painfully when he recalled how he’d found him in the midst of the raging battle - after having fought his way through what seemed like endless sea of chaos and blood he suddenly, finally spotted the King, on the ground and defenceless against the stab of Bolg's sabre - and at that moment, Bilbo didn't think, didn't deliberate, didn't measure his courage: he just acted. It wasn't even a conscious choice, to put himself in front of Thorin - it was as natural as breathing.

Or should he tell Thorin how utterly disgusted he was with himself by now, when he could look upon the past days and see his own actions in the unforgiving light of reality? His memories of late were hazy, blurred by a strange glow and obscured by a multitude of whispering voices. Smaug's voice, taunting him about the Arkenstone...  _ It would drive him mad, _ those words had resonated through Bilbo's mind over and over, becoming almost an incantation that justified every step he took on that down-spiralling road into madness. How could he have believed it? The words of a  _ dragon _ ? Smaug had played him, bewitched him - only a fool of a Took could think he could riddle with a dragon and survive intact! What a fool he'd been.

Or perhaps he should start with apologies. Sorry I withheld your most valuable heritage from you? Sorry I made a pact with your enemies behind your back? Sorry I drugged you? Or perhaps, most importantly - sorry I didn't trust you? How could anyone remedy anything with just a word? How could he ever begin to unmake all the hurt he’d caused?

It was only when Bilbo felt a tentative touch of a calloused fingertip, spreading wetness on his cheek, that he realised he'd been crying. The silent fall of tears changed then, his sorrow and remorse clawing their way to the surface, and Bilbo shook with hoarse sobs that he could no longer keep in. When an arm came to wrap itself around his back, he didn't push it away but only cried harder, soaking wet the leather of Thorin's vest as he wept into his shoulder.

He didn't flinch from the finger that slipped under his chin and lifted his head to look eye to eye with his King. Bilbo sniffed and swallowed and knew that he looked dreadful, eyes red and puffy, face snotty and nose twitching uncontrollably - but he was determined to hold under the scrutiny. Thorin deserved honesty. But Thorin wasn't feasting his eyes on Bilbo's misery - his eyes were bright and wet and crinkled around the corners and he was looking at Bilbo as if he was something he'd missed dearly and wasn't sure he'd ever find again, and then he breathed: "Bilbo... you are  _ back _ ."

Bilbo didn't dare to speak, his voice drowned in tears, so he just nodded and threw himself around Thorin's neck, holding on for dear life. The forgotten nuts rolled off the bed cover and clattered onto the ground. Thorin followed the sound with his gaze and then he smiled, extricated himself from Bilbo's frantic hug, picked up the nuts and returned them into Bilbo's hand.

"I've been told what these mean," he said.

"I don't deserve you," Bilbo hiccupped between sobs. His entire body was sore and his head swam with the emotional exhaustion. Thorin put a finger against his lips and shook his head, opening his mouth to say something, but Bilbo finally found his voice. He needed to apologise, he needed to get this off his chest - so he started talking and hoped that he would have enough breath and courage to finish.

"I am so sorry. I don't know what came over me. I think I was scared witless - I was so determined to keep you safe that I stopped seeing what was real and what wasn't - and what was right and what wasn't, too. I've been thinking of nothing but your own good until I stopped thinking about you, yourself. And when I woke up from that nightmare, I realised I could have - I was so afraid that I had - lost you... I am sorry Thorin, I truly am."

It sounded lame to Bilbo's ears. Weakness and stupidity weren't any excuses for what he’d done. But Thorin was still looking at him almost reverently, and when he spoke next, there was something akin to awed curiosity in his voice - as if Bilbo somehow knew the answer to a question that had plagued Thorin for a very long time.

"What made you wake up? What made you shake off the sickness?"

Bilbo was silent for a long moment, rubbing the inside of his wrist absentmindedly and thinking hard on his next words. In the end, he gave up and said them exactly as they came to him.

"When I realised that I no longer knew who you were. What you were to me." He looked at the letters of his soulmark, now smarting a bit after he’d been  touching it repeatedly all evening, reassuring himself it was still there. The next part was the hardest to admit but he had to say it - Thorin deserved to know the exact measure of his soulmate's depravity.

"When I realised that in protecting you at all costs - even at the cost of betraying you - I stopped seeing you as a person. I saw you only as my treasure. My possession."

"And you came back from that - on your own..." Thorin said wonderingly. Bilbo shook his head - he wasn't a hero. He was weak, his salvation was pure luck, a fortunate set of circumstances, nothing more.

"I came back to you," he whispered. "Seems that Gandalf was right - there is some good in having a souImate. If– if you'll still have me."

Thorin cradled Bilbo's face in both hands and brought their foreheads together. "I am sorry, too. I should have noticed that you were not yourself. I should have not let my anger dictate my actions. If I had lost you today, it would have been my fault as well."

His fingers skimmed over the bandage wrapped over Bilbo's temple. "I owe you my life, many times over."

"But I still hurt you..." Bilbo flinched when Thorin's hand that had been playing with the overgrown hair on the back of his neck caught on the collar of the  _ mithril _ shirt. It reminded him sharply of their last night alone and together, in the armoury. Disgust with himself filled Bilbo's stomach and he couldn't help but shudder. He attempted to hide his discomfort before Thorin would notice but the Dwarf was already pulling back, apologetic and concerned.

"And now I seem to be hurting you. Lay back and rest,  _ markhê _ –"

"It's not that," Bilbo blurted out. "It's this–" and he tugged helplessly at his mail shirt. "I– I–" and Bilbo realised there was no way to explain, not without causing more, unnecessary hurt. He had accepted Thorin's third courting gift in the throes of madness but that didn't lessen Thorin's own, honest intentions.

"I still think I look ridiculous in it," Bilbo mumbled at last, rather sheepishly.

"Truthfully - you do, a bit," Thorin's eyes twinkled. "But it saved your life today, and thus I am not sorry to make your pride bear this little humiliation."

Bilbo giggled and immediately clamped his mouth shut, surprised how easily that laugh escaped him, how happily. But that overwhelming joy of reunion and forgiveness, once it had found an outlet, couldn't be held inside, and Bilbo felt a grin making itself at home on his face, wide and happy, and defiantly refusing to fade. Again, Bilbo rubbed his soulmark, for the lack of doing something with his fingers. They felt so empty now, itching for something round and smooth to be rolled in between them... wonder where his little trinket was? Lost, probably. What a pity. Bilbo shook his head and a golden coin-bead clinked against the edge of his jaw.

"Oh! Will you - I mean, could you fix my braid? I'm afraid it's a mess..." he asked, not entirely sure if such a request would be welcome.

Thorin's smile was like the sun. He used his fingers to comb through Bilbo's hair, still a bit wet from when his head wound was washed, and then he rebraided the engagement plait and fixed its end with the bead. Bilbo sighed. It felt so good to have this back.

"What happens now?"

"What is done is done," Thorin said stoically. "The Arkenstone was returned to us, in exchange for the white gems. King Thranduil," and Bilbo didn't miss the sneer at that one word, "seemed rather anxious to get rid of the stone he so readily accepted. He snatched the gems and scampered off to his forest with no more demands, Mahal be thanked for that."

"I think he believes that the stone is evil - that it causes evil in people," Bilbo said hesitantly, half inclined to believe it himself. Thorin stared.

"Bilbo, it is a stone. My grandfather had been enamoured with his gold long before the Arkenstone had been found in the heart of the Mountain."

Bilbo squeezed his eyes shut in shame. "I've been such a fool."

But now that he had closed his eyes, he suddenly found that opening them was much harder than before. He slumped down on the bed and blinked sleepily.

"I will let you rest." Thorin made to get up and Bilbo's hand shot up to grab his. He forced his eyes wide open, pleading.

"No, keep talking, I don't need to sleep–" and the rest of his words were swallowed in a huge yawn.

Thorin was laughing quietly. "You most certainly do, my dear burglar."

"I feel like I've been sleeping for weeks," groused Bilbo and yawned again. "I had such strange dreams..."

Thorin caressed his hand. "I will stay a while. What were you dreaming about?"

Contrary to his words, Bilbo felt utterly wrung out, the warm blanket of sleep crawling over the edges of his mind. "Hard to remember," he mumbled, not even sure if he was still speaking aloud as his eyes fell shut. "I was alone in the dark... nothing but me - and a wheel of fire..."

 

*

 

Two weeks passed in a blur of activity. It was amazing how quickly the cleaning and securing of Erebor could proceed with three hundred eager Dwarves and even some Men willing to help. Bilbo still couldn't run or even draw a breath too deep so he kept himself busy away from the general bustle, mostly hiding in the library or in the greenhouses. With the majority of the main walkways still damaged by Smaug there was no time or resources to be wasted on repairing the royal quarters, and so all the Dwarves of Thorin's Company and their burglar still slept in the dormitory they had claimed upon their arrival. The kitchens, however, had been among the first rooms to be cleaned and were quickly getting into full swing. It took two days (and a lot of sweat) to light the main forges but now they were at last working on slowly driving the chill out of the rock. Finally, one evening, Bilbo was enchanted when he spotted a couple of Dwarves working on repairing all the wrought lanterns on the main walkways and staircases so that the huge central cavern once again resembled the Erebor of old, rock-green kingdom filled with golden light.

The next evening Bilbo, tired but in cheerful mood, trotted into the room that served as Thorin's office (King's Council Chamber, he had to remind himself. This was no Shire with its no-nonsense-business, this was a kingdom of grandeur.) At the table already stacked with papers after only a fortnight of bureaucracy stood Thorin and in his hand was a little wooden box. It looked old, scratched and tattered, and Bilbo noticed that it reminded him of the boxes that toys came in from the Dwarves travelling through the Shire. He wondered if it was perhaps Thorin's old toy, or a long lost toy box of some child of old Dale.

"Ah, here you are," said Thorin. "Bard had come by earlier but he couldn't wait until you were finished with your dirt digging."

"That dirt digging will bring you something else to eat besides cram and smoked meat come spring, and I dare you to say no to my tomatoes," Bilbo grumbled. "What did Bard want?"

"Well, mainly he came asking for more crowbars, shovels and pulleys - and as many Dwarves as we can spare for the heavy lifting that is going to be needed in Dale. They’ve begun cleaning the streets of rubble and pulling down the houses that can not be saved. This morning, Bombur went down with Bard to give his opinion on what was structurally sound and what not, and to draw a rough scheme of what needed to be done and in what order."

Bilbo collapsed on a chair, tired after a long day, and nodded absentmindedly. Bombur must have been happy to finally be back in his element as an architect.

"He also left you this. He said that Bombur had found it in Dale during their inspection. They nearly missed it - it was half buried in the ashes near the place Bard had left you before the battle, so Bard figured it must belong to you."

"Yeah?" Bilbo replied, not really listening. He sniffed his own sleeve. High time they got the laundries and bathhouse back in working order - the entire Mountain was beginning to stink and not with the Dragon stench this time. "What is it?"

"I don't know," said Thorin, "it came in a box. Let me see..."

Bilbo finally looked up and his gaze fell upon Thorin holding the box open. Inside was a little golden ring. 


	18. The Summons

_ Inside the box was a little golden ring. _

In the space between one heartbeat and the next, Bilbo's world narrowed to a single spot - his eyes saw only a dark tunnel with a golden gleam at the end. His heart pounded as if he had run a mile, gooseflesh crawled over his itching skin and his every muscle tensed like a spring being coiled, like a deer that's crossing an open plain where he knows the hunters are lurking. The entire mountain could have fallen apart around them at that moment and Bilbo wouldn't have noticed. A voice he hadn't heard in a fortnight, one he'd nearly forgotten, slipped into the vacant place in Bilbo’s mind that he hadn’t even been aware had been there, and it felt as if it had never left. It whispered to him of missing, of luck, of reunion, of predestination... and Thorin was speaking, too, some insignificant blathering, but the sound of his voice was coming through the haze blurred and strangely distorted. The dual sensation grated on Bilbo's nerves and would the Dwarf just shut up?

"Oh," he said at last. Well, 'said' might have been too generous a word, it was a mere gush of air that left his chest hollow and ready to scream. But scream he could not, he had to stay calm, it was imperative that he wouldn't give away how important this was, how much he wanted... Bilbo abruptly brought his shaking hand to his mouth and bit his knuckle, hard, to keep it still.

"It's my old ring," he added in what he hoped was a casual tone. That tone you might use when you opened a rarely used kitchen drawer and suddenly spotted a set of silver spoons that you thought you had misplaced for good. But even he could hear his voice catch and tremble and, sure enough, Thorin lifted his head from admiring the ring (admiring! What business had he to stare at it like that? Did he perhaps like it? Did he want it for himself?) with a vague question in his eyes that slowly sharpened as he took in Bilbo's agitation.

_ No, no, no - we're so close! _ "That's mine!" Bilbo snapped, harsher than he intended. It cut through the room like a clumsy blade in the hands of an inexperienced fighter. "Put it down, will you?"

"Of course," Thorin said slowly, as if such a simple request confused him. "But what is the matt–"

"It's mine!" Bilbo barked indignantly. "What business do you have pawing at other people's things?"

And now Thorin looked actually hurt - he was doing that  _ thing _ with lowering his chin and eyes flicking to the side like a slighted hero of a fairytale. Dwarves, honestly! If they didn't want to get their fingers smacked they shouldn't stick them where they didn't belong!

"Peace, Bilbo. I had merely looked–"

"Ha!" Bilbo was breathing too fast to be able to gulp down enough air for a proper laugh. He was almost certain now that Thorin's coyness was only a sham. "So now that you've looked your fill, would you kindly give it to me? It's mine, you have no right to keep it from me!"

Thorin was still hesitating - blast it, now even more so than before. It was infuriating.

"What is this, Bilbo? You have never acted this strangely."

"Oh, strange, am I now?" Bilbo finally managed to huff out a laugh, waving his hand to make it plain that he didn't actually care and then sticking them both in his pockets - achingly  _ empty _ pockets. He put his best effort into looking collected and carefree: he shrugged, looked briefly away and slanted on a grin.

"It's been a long day, is all. I'm tired. Sorry I over-reacted. It's just - my little charm. It's brought me luck on the Quest, I guess I grew attached to it."

He kept shuffling his feet, getting closer to Thorin in increments - and then he clenched his jaw and felt hot fury coil in his stomach when he saw Thorin take a step back, keeping the distance between them. Bilbo looked at his lover from under his lashes and softened his voice to sound like spun sugar. "Well, would you mind terribly giving it over? It's nothing anyway."

Something apprehensive flickered through Thorin's eyes and he said, softly but with decision: "I don't think so." And then he started closing the box.

Bilbo lunged.

 

*

 

In that split second, Thorin would have sworn that the  _ thing _ attacking him wasn't Bilbo. It had Bilbo's face, but horribly transformed: his mouth open on a snarl, lips curled back from teeth, his eyes bulging out of his head and shining with mad and murderous intent, fixed upon the box and the ring in it.

And then, perhaps startled by his own ungodly screech, or thrown off by Thorin's reflexive flinch back, Bilbo's eyes snapped up to Thorin's face and - he crumpled, as if all his strings had been cut at once.

It was an instantaneous change, from full charge to a dead drop, as if he was a rabid animal that struck out and collided headfirst into the bars of its cage. For a moment, Bilbo hovered on the spot - frozen and slack-jawed, eyes wide, hands still lifted but no longer flexed into claws - and then a horrified, stricken and terribly lost look slowly spread over his face, and he yelped like a kicked dog.  

He took a stumbling step back, and again, and again, his open palms pushing at the air in front of him as if he was trying to lift invisible barriers between himself and Thorin, until his back came into contact with the hard wood of the chamber door and he blurted out in a shaky voice: "Lock me away... please, Thorin, call the guards and have me locked away."

Bilbo was trembling like a leaf and his hands seemed out of his control, torn between reaching out and clawing back at themselves, his fists opening and closing on empty air. Thorin dropped the box on the table as if it stung him.

Bilbo jumped at the sound and then whimpered and bit his knuckle hard enough to break the skin. Something in Thorin broke at the sight of blood pearling and running down Bilbo's wrist.

"Bilbo, for the love of Mahal, what just happened? What is this thing? What is it doing to you?"

Bilbo pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and whined: "Just do it! Lock me away!"

Thorin moved to him, his instinct set on comfort, but stopped dead in his tracks as soon as Bilbo looked up again, this time wild, hair sticking out in every direction and his eyes burning with threat. He looked like an animal, caught on the fine line between attacking and running away, and the expressions changed on his face so quickly that Thorin only recognised him half the time - the other half it was someone else, someone ruthless, cunning, and malicious.

"It's my invisibility ring," he whispered and then clamped a hand over his mouth, frowning furiously and hissing something unintelligible. Another switch, and he gasped and blurted out, as quickly as if he was afraid that he wouldn't have enough time to say it: "I found it on my first journey to Erebor, under the Misty Mountains..."

Thorin pushed the box away from himself as if it contained a venomous spider. In his mind, a lot of fragmented and seemingly unrelated details began to fall together like the pieces of a puzzle: their violent encounter with that misshapen creature in the caves under the Misty Mountains... its endless shrieks of  _ Thieffs! _ ... the little motion of Bilbo's hands towards his pocket always a second before he disappeared... their talk at Béorn's, Bilbo steeling himself to tell him something, even getting as far as saying 'I have this little–' only to be unfortunately interrupted by Gandalf... the Wizard's warning - one that Thorin had misunderstood, and Thorin's own erroneous - and yet strangely accurate - perception that Bilbo's invisibility was hurting him... Thranduil claiming that he'd seen some ancient evil peering out through Bilbo's eyes, and Gilraen fearing that something dark was shadowing Bilbo's mind and clinging to his spirit... Bilbo's deterioration during those first days in Erebor after the death of Smaug, not only mental but physical as well, his refusal to sleep, to eat, the paleness and clamminess of his skin - he  _ was _ hurting, he  _ was _ being drained, he  _ was _ slowly being transformed. And to complete the circle, Thorin's mind returned again to the image of that wretched, horrible creature, its bloodthirsty, raging fits and murderous, throttling hands–

_ Bilbo had lunged for me to take the ring by force, _ Thorin thought and for a moment, his chest felt unbearably heavy.

"I could have killed you, Thorin! For a moment, I wanted to!" Bilbo cried. "Lock me away and the ring, too, don't come near it, don't let anyone touch it, please..."

Abruptly, Thorin yanked open a drawer in his desk and pushed the box inside, slamming it closed and turning the key in the lock. It wasn't the best place for safekeeping but it would have to do for now. Bilbo slid down the door into a heap of shaking limbs and curled back on the floor.He flinched away when Thorin tried to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"You mustn't trust me," he said hollowly, his tear-streaked face a picture of defeat. His restless eyes were not on Thorin but glued to the desk, and he stared at it with heart-wrenching, insane longing.

"I will always trust  _ you _ ," Thorin said fiercely, heart beating in his throat. "It is that  _ thing,  _ this sorcery that I will not touch."

He thought deeply for a moment, his tactician's mind soon coming up with a solution that would serve them for the time being. He didn't want to touch the box any more than necessary - even if it wasn't for Bilbo's frantic pleas for him not to, the memory of those few moments he had examined the ring sat uncomfortably with him. He could feel something intrusive, something dangerous nagging at the edges of his mind, testing his heart, changing its shape to fit through the cracks in his defences. He would not let this ring to learn the language that Thorin would be attuned to understand, he wouldn't teach it the words that the ring would use later in persuading him to listen. Sack the paperwork, sack everything that could wait for a few weeks: they would leave this room, lock the door and never again come near it, not until this issue could be resolved.

"Let's go, Bilbo," Thorin said and pulled Bilbo up and into his arms. There was no will left in the dismayed Hobbit, not even to return the embrace. At least he wasn't struggling to get out of it.

When Thorin opened the door, Dwalin and another guard - a trainee from the Iron Hills - stood outside, arms at the ready. From their agitated faces it was easy to guess that they had heard the screaming. Bilbo, the brave little soul, smiled grimly when he saw them.

"Let's hope Smaug hadn't got anywhere close to the prison cells," he remarked. "I would hate it if the bars were too damaged to keep me." There was such subtle lightness to his words that Thorin suspected Bilbo was only half joking. The other half was a warning.

Thorin happened to know, for a fact, that the prison department was one of the best preserved parts of the city. No damage save for a lot of dust and a bit of rust, no decaying bodies - when the Dragon came, some good guard had had the presence of mind to unlock all the cells before they ran. And yet his mind rebelled at the thought of keeping Bilbo - however willing the Hobbit was - in such a grim place, so far away from his beloved sunlight.

"What is this," Dwalin growled, confused and suspicious. Thorin didn't blame him. Everything about this resembled more a nightmare than something that could happen in the real world.

"I will walk you to the room you will stay in," Thorin said and took Bilbo by the elbow.

"I'm not sure I can be trusted not to leave that room," Bilbo warned again. "I am a burglar, even when visible, you know."

Dwalin and the other guard stared. "Will someone tell me what's going on?" the warrior demanded.

"There is a newly cleaned guardroom in the barracks," Thorin decided. "It has basic facilities and a good lock on the door." He turned to the Iron Hills Dwarf and ordered: "Set up a permanent guard on this chamber. Nobody gets in."

The Dwarf, well trained into unquestioning obedience, saluted and hurried off to secure a rotation duty. While they waited for his return, Thorin addressed Dwalin: "I need you to keep guard by Bilbo's room."

Dwalin nodded slowly - a fierce scowl darkened his face as he thought he understood. "Oh, there we were thinking that dissenters against your marriage would take a while to rear their ugly heads. Don't worry, I won't let anyone in. We'll keep our consort out of danger."

Bilbo only snorted - he seemed to getting back to his old self, now the ring was out of his direct reach. But Thorin could still sense the faint twitching of the muscles in the arm he was holding, the suppressed impulses to yank his arm free and dive back into the council chamber. No, for Bilbo's sake, it was better to do as the sane half of his mind asked.

"I am the danger, Dwalin," Bilbo said and smiled. It wasn't a happy smile.

"You are not to let Bilbo out," Thorin added. "For his own safety. Please."

Dwalin sucked in a breath. "Is that the madness again?"

"Oh, this is the root of that madness," Thorin laughed humourlessly, "but this time, we will uproot it. I will send for Gandalf. It is high time the Wizard came back to sort out his own mess."

 

*

 

Ravens had been sent out into the four corners of the world. Eventually, a message came from the Elves that the Grey Wizard was in Lórien, recuperating after his brush with death in Dol Guldur. According to Lord Celeborn's words, written in immaculate Cirth script and infuriatingly flawless Khuzdul, Gandalf had been in and out of consciousness for the past two weeks and had only now regained enough strength to shed some light on the matter of this urgent summoning.

The Elvish letter hadn't explicitly mentioned the ring - which was understandable, as Thorin made sure in his missives that the reason Gandalf was so desperately needed in Erebor remained undisclosed. And yet, Gandalf had been obviously lucid enough to put two and two together, because the brunt of the message brought in by raven was simple:  _ Keep it secret. Do not touch it. Keep it safe until we arrive. _

And hastily added at the bottom of the rolled up parchment, in a spidery script that betrayed a still weak hand:  _ Keep my burglar safe as well. _

No actual explanation as to the nature of the ring, which could have meant that it was dangerous enough not to be entrusted into the claws of a raven.

Neither Celeborn nor Gandalf had specified who were those 'we' besides the Wizard but Thorin could guess. The Witch of the Golden Wood and, possibly, others from that high council of immortal dabblers in magic whose company Gandalf so liked to keep. Thorin sighed and filed the letter away in his new temporary office. He should better go and prepare rooms for the delegation. He briefly considered instructing the kitchens to exclude any green food from Erebor's fare for the duration of the visit - simply for the joy of petty revenge for their all-green dinner in Rivendell - but then he realised that the season was at the cusp of Winter, and aside from wilted turnips and pickles in vinegar there wasn't any green food to be had anyway.

On the other hand, when Thranduil learned of such a visit in Erebor, he was likely going to spontaneously combust with jealousy. Thorin supposed every cloud had a silver lining.

The King had been asking to keep Bilbo company in the Hobbit's solitary confinement every evening. He knew that the Hobbit was eating - trays of food had been carried in under Dwalin's watchful eye and brought out again empty - but Thorin's heart ached knowing that Bilbo voluntarily suffered alone. On the first day, his insistent knocking and soft words were met with nothing but silence. On the second day, he could hear sobs that petered out as soon as his footsteps could be heard through the door, and on the third day, he finally got a reply - well, sort of: the crack and the shatter of a clay bowl smashed against the wall.

So on the fourth evening, Thorin simply unlocked the door and marched in, a servant in his wake carrying a tray laden with dinner. Bilbo lay curled up in a ball of covers on the bed and showed no sign of even being awake, let alone acknowledging the intrusion.

The door closed after the servant. Bilbo rolled over and pushed himself up to sit. He glared at Thorin, but the King was relieved to see that the skittering, unstable state in which Bilbo seemed to flicker between two personalities was gone.

"You shouldn't be here. I tried to murder you," Bilbo said mulishly.

Thorin sat down at the table and cocked one unfazed eyebrow. "You stopped yourself before you could lay a finger on me. That counts."

Bilbo seemed to munch over it and then rose from the bed, heaved a great sigh, and took a seat opposite Thorin. Without any more arguing, he dived into the food with an appetite that warmed Thorin's heart.

During their dinner Thorin told Bilbo of the news - that Gandalf was on his way and would be here soon. "It's a three day ride, as the raven flies," Thorin quoted the newest letter, "but I know for a fact that the raven was here quicker than that."

The little joke fell flat on deaf ears. Bilbo was staring morosely into his plate. "Gandalf had warned me against using it too much, you know," he said, out of the blue. "'Magic rings shouldn't be used lightly', he'd said. Well, I guess it takes a fool of a Hobbit to use one to steal from the Elvenking, then from a dragon, and then from the king of Dwarves..."

"When Gandalf didn't know how dangerous it was, how were you supposed to know it?"

Bilbo was silent. He left his plate unfinished, got up and went to sit on the floor in a corner in the far end of the room. From that place he had a good view of the barred fanlight above the door, letting through the light from the main cavern. The golden beams of light slanted over a ceiling and Bilbo watched them as if he was watching a sunset, the unmoving stripes dimming as the lanterns outside went out one by one, Erebor growing quiet in preparation for the night.

Thorin could tell that there was something deeper than remorse and guilt that weighed on his beloved's heart and made him shy away from every touch. "Bilbo..."

Bilbo wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes. "I found that ring before we met. I have had it all the time we've known each other."

Thorin nodded slowly. He remembered the day in the greenhouse - his angry, inexcusable outburst of youthful pride. Bilbo had vanished in front of him and Thorin had spent the next few days agonizing over the idea that he was losing his mind, that he had been only imagining the entire encounter.

Bilbo's voice was very small and scared. "What if you have loved a monster the entire time?"

Thorin crossed the distance between them in three quick strides and dropped to sit beside him, gathering him in his arms. Bilbo let him.

"You are not a monster. You did let go of it once, you will break free from it again."

Bilbo lifted his head to give him a bewildered look. "How can you be so sure I have let go of it before?"

"You left it in Dale," Thorin pointed out. "I don't believe you lost it - Bombur said it was in a fireplace, amongst the cinders. You must have thrown it away."

"I suppose I did..." Bilbo frowned. "I remember the voice asking me to take up its offer and let go of you, and then being very angry with me when I didn't. And then suddenly it was as if I woke up, everything was clear and loud and I was in the middle of a battle."

Thorin tightened his hold on the scared and at once incredibly brave Hobbit in his arms and pressed a kiss into his hair. Immediately, Bilbo tensed up, and Thorin let go reluctantly.

"I think of it all the time," Bilbo confessed in a low voice. "I can hear it. It's calling me."

"Has it always been so strong?" Thorin doubted that even as he asked. Confirming his thought, Bilbo shook his head.

"No, it... it sort of grew on me. All those years in the Shire I barely touched it. Sometimes it tried to nag on me but I didn't trust it, then. I think - that night when Azog's pack of Wargs caught up with us and you had run down the fir tree like the idiot you were... that was the first time I did what it suggested. It showed me a vision of what would happen if I didn't use it... that you would've died. Gandalf had been so angry with me then, and I didn't understand why... I think I do, now."

  
Yes, Gandalf, Thorin thought bitterly. The Wizard better know a way out of this mess when he came, otherwise Thorin wouldn't be responsible for his actions. 


	19. White Council

They gave him new clothes today. Not just his old shirt and the odious Lake-town blue coat, however well washed and mended, but actual newly fashioned garments - shirt, waistcoat, jacket and even a pair of proper knee-length trousers. From how well they fitted him Bilbo suspected Dori might have had a hand in it.

He also made good use of the sponge and the copper basin of steaming hot water they brought him in the morning. There was a bronze mirror to help him in taming his curls into a respectable Hobbit hairstyle - with the inevitable touch of Dwarvish, his engagement braid - and even - Bilbo gasped with delight when he saw them -  _ two _ brushes, to groom not only his head but his feet as well. Someone in the Company had been listening to his endless woes during the quest!

So it happened that Bilbo was feeling very presentable indeed when he was brought before the Chamber of the King's Council to be presented to the far more important Council currently taking residence inside.

He'd known that that particular morning was going to be different as soon as he woke. If the excitement and general commotion brewing outside his room wasn't enough to clue him in, the change of voice in the calling of his ring had told him that someone powerful was near. At first, it resembled the faint dull throb of a headache, a sensation similar to that sickening, bleaching feeling he had had in Rivendell. Bilbo recognised it now for what it was: the ring, trying to hide itself. It didn't want to be found by anyone who would be able to see its inherent malice, and to take action against it.

As the morning progressed, the hues and undertones coming to Bilbo through their shared link gradually changed. The taste of it grew spiky with anxiety and the ever-present shadow of it darkened with the first tendrils of fear. Bilbo dared a little smirk as he walked amidst the pair of Dwarven guards to the meeting, and took a fortifying breath before the door was opened for him and he walked in. The more the ring was afraid, the better. It meant that Bilbo could fear the less.

Several pairs of eyes fixed upon him immediately, alight with unabashed curiosity. Next to that, they also reflected a multitude of emotions: gentle and soothing kindness (Elrond, in regal velvet robe and silver circlet), heartfelt relief (Gandalf, thin and still a bit haggard looking), a tenderness with a hint of impish amusement (a golden-haired Elven lady that exuded a sense of quiet but confident power - it must have been Galadriel, and Bilbo could hardly tear his eyes from her beauty), venerable and a bit disdainful doubt (white-robed Wizard with dark, piercing eyes, that could only be Saruman), and even honest surprise (a rather unkempt-looking Wizard clad in mostly brown and with a hat - oh, when Bilbo looked at the hat, he was sure he had found Bofur's comrade-in-fashion). Bilbo bowed to all and then he took the last free seat in the impromptu circle of chairs. Thorin, in a seat next to him, clasped his hand and gave him an encouraging smile.

Elrond bowed his head slightly with an air of authority over this meeting and spoke: "So, this is the ring-bearer."

"And you insist, Gandalf, that he has found and carried the One?" the White Wizard asked with poorly hidden scorn.

"I am utterly convinced of it," Gandalf replied defiantly.

Bilbo frowned in confusion. What 'One'? Were there more rings like his? Why not - Bilbo suddenly remembered the overheard conversation between Elrond and Gandalf, that warm Lithe night in Rivendell. They had discussed the Dwarven rings of power - seven, they had been. And the Enemy that had wanted them back. This 'One' ring sounded rather ominous in that respect…

Saruman appeared unconvinced. "You want us to believe that a mere Hafling has passed the test which the High King of Gondor failed?"

Bilbo gaped - while both Thorin and Gandalf bristled.

"Master Baggins is the hero of Erebor!" Thorin said loudly, half-rising from his seat - and at the same time, Gandalf said:

"Bilbo Baggins is a  _ Hobbit _ , and the finest one I've ever known. You would do well, my friend, not to underestimate the smaller children of Iluvátar, unless you wish to repeat the Enemy's mistakes."

Bilbo surreptitiously tugged on Thorin's hand to get him back to sitting and shot Gandalf a little grateful smile. The Wizard was perhaps a bit daunting and at times a very distant friend, but at least he was steadfast. Moreover - Wizards often tended to overlook the pawns in their games, but Bilbo knew that Gandalf  _ cared _ for the little ones. He never saw the Hobbits as some dismissible oddity but as an integral and vital part of the world.

"I have long studied the fate of the One," Saruman objected. "It has been swept with the Anduin and long ago washed into the sea. This cannot be it."

The silver-bell of Galadriel's voice cut into the budding debate and effectively silenced it. "The One has been lost for nearly three thousand years, but surely there must exist a written account of it from the time it was in Isildur's hands." She looked expectantly at Saruman, who stared, frowning, back.

"There could be something in Gondorian archives," he allowed reluctantly.

"If Isildur left us a description of the One Ring, and the description matched..."

"I would go there, if only to warn them against the threat of Mordor," offered Gandalf. At the sound of the last word, something stirred in Bibo's guts. The name had an echo that only he seemed to have heard, and it was as if a cold hand laid itself, heavy and threatening, around his throat. He shivered.

"We shall see," Elrond decided and gestured towards the stone table that stood in the middle of the circle.

"Bring forth the ring, Master Baggins."

Alarm jolted through Bilbo and he stammered. "Me...? Why me?" A half of him sang - he was going to hold his precious little ring again, even for a little while - and the other half quivered with the urge to run as far from it as possible. He cast a desperate look at Thorin, begging for reassurance. "It's over there in that drawer, you can take it!" But even as the words left his mouth he suddenly felt a surge of bile rising against them. Nobody should take the ring! Nobody should touch it!

Galadriel smiled in a way that reminded Bilbo achingly of his mother. "You are the ring-bearer, Bilbo." Her tone was melodious but simple - and yet, when Bilbo caught her gaze, he could not look away. The rest of the world drowned out and he suddenly heard her voice inside his head, just as beautiful but inescapable, and he felt her searching gaze like an unerring finger, reaching out and touching the innermost centre of his rapidly beating heart.

_ If you do not let go of it freely, you know how you shall end. _

And Bilbo knew. The memory of slimy, bony fingers around his throat was so sharp that he gagged. He would end being like Gollum, bound to his precious and enthralled with the single-minded, all-consuming wish to have it again.

"Even if we took it and threw it into the sea, you would never be free of its call," Gandalf said.

"You began your ownership of the ring with pity, and that has shielded your soul from a great measure of the harm the ring could have wrought in you. It is important that you leave it willingly."

But I don't want to, a treacherous part of Bilbo whispered. He stood up, suppressed the irrational reflex to put his hands into his pockets, and nodded - more to himself than for the sake of others. "All right. I - I'll just get it, then."

Thorin pressed something into his hand. A key. Right. The drawer had been locked, of course.

Those few steps to the once paper-stacked table, now meticulously tidied and pristine like a memento, shouldn't have felt like that great a distance. The hard edges of the key dug painfully into the meat of his palm.

Bilbo was certain he would fumble at the lock. The hand with the key shook like a leaf - but the key slid in on the first try and the mechanism yielded with a barely audible click. For a moment, Bilbo fiercely resented the fabled workmanship of Dwarven locksmiths. The drawer slid open easily, without a single squeak, and the old toy box sat in there like the perfect picture of innocence.

Bilbo gritted his teeth, grabbed the box, put it on the desk and opened it - and then he halted his hand above the box, fingers frozen mid-grasp. The knowledge of where he was had somehow slipped out of his mind, the sense of what he was supposed to do was but a pale, unimportant memory. The only thing that mattered was him and the ring, together at last.

So small. So pretty. So useful.

_ Keep me and together we will be invincible. _

You are evil. What you have made me do was evil.  

_ Evil. Good. Two sides of the same coin. Is bringing order to chaos evil or good? Think of your perfect little garden, so beautiful, so good. To the weeds you are pulling out of it you are surely evil. _

You are darkness. You would bring darkness into the whole world and nothing good would come from it.

_ I am flame, darkness is merely the absence of me. Mine is the golden light, the burning light.   _

No, there are other lights in this world. The sun, and the stars. The light in the hearts of free people.

_ People die. Your love will die. But I can give you immortality, and together we can shape this world after our image. _

"Bilbo..."

Someone was calling his name. It might have been Gandalf. Bilbo shook his head, trying to clear it. Oh. Giving over the ring, of course. The stone table was waiting. Everyone was waiting.   

Bilbo took out the ring. It fit so well in his hand.

"I don't want immortality," he said to it. A gasp could be heard - somewhere off, too far from the conversation Bilbo was focused on in his head.

_ Have you ever wondered how little you have aged since the day you found me? _

That gave Bilbo pause. Yes - he was fifty one, his birthday come and gone in Lake-town. And yet - and wasn't the Shire gossip mill simply  _ insatiable _ about it - he hardly changed since his first journey to Erebor, and he had been thirty-three at the time... So that was his ring's doing?

A vision hit him - another room in another time. He stood in a bedchamber, lavishly furnished and decorated, and looked down on his grey and withered self amidst the gold-embroidered pillows - an old Hobbit on his deathbed. And sitting beside him, face drawn and ashen with anguish, Thorin - barely changed, not even a speck of grey in the rich black of his hair. Bilbo had five, six at most, decades left - and then Thorin would be left alone and live out the rest of his long life, perhaps two more centuries, in mourning.

_ Keep me and you can spare him this suffering. Bow to me and I will give you the happiness you want. _

Taking those two steps back to the centre of the Council hurt. Bilbo extended his hand above the stone table to drop the ring - but it would be so easy not to. Bilbo knew it. He could slip the ring on his finger and even the greatest among the Wizards would be helpless against him. He could slip out of this chamber before the guards outside pulled themselves together from the surprise…

A soft touch whispered at the back of his free hand and then his wrist was encircled with big, warm fingers. Bilbo looked up at Thorin who was standing next to him - tall, intense and real, just like the night so long ago in Bag End, the whole wide world - Bilbo's whole world - concentrated in his presence. Thorin's thumb was drawing little circles on the inside of his wrist and Bilbo suddenly knew what to do.

He opened his hand and the ring landed on the table. It didn't bounce off or clatter as could be expected of something so small and round, and the sound of it seemed deafening to Bilbo's ears. But at the same time, something snapped inside his chest, a weight that had been tiring out his heart for so long that he didn't even feel the burden anymore, and now the absence of it was so staggering that Bilbo had to lean on Thorin to keep his balance.

His mind was clear and for the first time in he couldn't remember how long it felt as if it actually fit into his head. No more great and daunting visions, no more overlapping voices that made his head hurt just by trying to keep track of them. He could think small thoughts again, and it was wonderful. Bilbo closed his eyes briefly and then he looked at his own hands. When did they become so pale? When was the last time he saw the sun?

"Take me out, Thorin. I want to see the sun," he said, aware that he sounded like a fauntling, and beyond caring. He was very, very tired.

Thorin held him by both shoulders, smiling with wet eyes, and Bilbo fitted his head into the hollow under Thorin's collarbone and just breathed.

"It's freezing outside," Thorin murmured, and laughed - honest to Valar, he laughed. It was such a beautiful sound.

"I don't care," Bilbo mumbled. "The sun will shine, and the sky will be blue, and there will be no wheel of fire."

"No, there will not," Thorin agreed and they left, without a care for the venerable lords anymore. Just as well, Bilbo thought wearily. Let them solve the fate of Middle Earth without bothering the Hobbits, just once.

 

*

 

The sun was reaching the highest point of its low path across the winter sky when Gandalf joined them on the balcony where Bilbo stood, huddled into Thorin's great fur coat, face turned towards the sun and eyes closed in bliss.

"What news, Wizard?" Thorin greeted him.

"Saruman still has his doubts," Gandalf said, shrugging. "There is no convincing him without  proof. But however this shall turn out in the end, I am glad, Bilbo, glad beyond measure that at least we could help you."

Bilbo nodded. The sun was indeed nice. Thorin's solid presence behind his back even more so. The only thing that would make it utterly perfect would be a pipe-full of Old Toby. Well, can't have everything in a barely restored kingdom of Dwarves.

"What happens now?" Thorin asked. "I will not have that thing in my mountain."

Gandalf took out a pipe and began packing it. Bilbo's nose twitched on reflex.

"The ring will be taken to Rivendell. It will be safe there," Gandalf said. He whispered something under his whiskers and blew on the pipe bowl. It lit up even in the sharp winter wind and Bilbo frowned.

"Where were you when we couldn't light the wet wood to make fire on the quest?"

The Wizard didn't dignify that with an answer and instead he continued as if nothing happened, speaking around the first mouthful of smoke.

"The Enemy had been weakened by his defeat in Dol Guldur. It will take him some time before he begins searching for his possession - if the ring is, indeed, his - which I believe it is. Saruman just doesn't like to admit when he's in the wrong."

Bilbo snorted. "As if you ever did." Then he eyed the pipe like a hungry Hobbit would eye a berry tart. "May I?"

Gandalf smiled and gave it over without complaint.

"What if your suspicion proves to be right?" asked Thorin. "Sauron will want his ring back."

"Then it will have to be destroyed," sighed Gandalf. "But you, my friends, should not concern yourselves with it anymore. You have done enough. Let's hope that the last pages of this story will be written by someone else."

Bilbo pursed his lips to blow a smoke ring and then decided against it.

"Speaking of writing," he said, "I think this would make an amazing adventure book."

"You are your father's son, Bilbo," Gandalf smiled. Then he leaned down to look his friend in the eye. "And I am sorry, truly sorry, for being barely involved when I should have been. Hobbits are remarkable creatures, vastly beyond anyone's ken, but even they shouldn't be left alone to face dragonfire..."

"I'm not complaining, Gandalf," Bilbo said and took a deep lungful of smoke from the borrowed pipe. "After all, there's no smoke without fire."

 

*

 

Gandalf left with an empty pipe and a friendly pat on Bilbo's shoulder and Bilbo sighed in contentment. The ring-shaped imprint in his mind was still there but it was a memory now, one that would surely fade with time, not a painful presence like a stumbling stone to his every thought. He could live with that.

Thorin stirred behind him and rested his chin on top of Bilbo's head.

"When you said you didn't wish for immortality..."

"I said that aloud?" Bilbo startled. "Oh my."

"The ring tempted you with it, didn’t it?"

Bilbo looked at the vast expanse of battle-beaten plain, at the glimmer of the Long Lake and the dark blue shadow of Mirkwood behind it. So much work to do and so little time. Well, perhaps for one person - but the Dwarves under the Mountain would endure. Their children would see a better world than their forefathers did.

"It was tempting me with life longer than yours," Bilbo said quietly. "We do have little time together, you know. Much less than you would have with a Dwarf."

"I know," Thorin said simply and without regret. "But it is no Dwarf that I love."

Bilbo snuggled deeper into the fur. "The ring is very good at offering things, you know. It makes it all seem so real, so viable. Power, happiness, immortality... But it is all just deceit. In the end I knew it was lying to me. Remember that creature in the caves - Gollum was his name... he had the ring for a very long time, I think. And yet he wasn't happy, and he didn't live in a garden, and he wasn't loved by anyone. He lived alone in a cold, ugly cave and ate raw fish and stray Goblins."

Thorin huffed out a laugh and rubbed his palms up and down Bilbo's arms.

"It's freezing. Let's go home."

Bilbo untangled himself from the coat, turned, leaned up on his toes and planted a little kiss on Thorin's frost-red cheek.

  
"Yes," he agreed softly. "Let's go home."


	20. Epilogue

The entirety of Erebor thrummed in preparations for the Yule festivities. Though the daily meals still had to be rationed - not even a mountain of gold would make food grow in the frozen ground - and thus the feast was going to be rather constrained, at least there would be ale.

Bilbo could not get enough of the preparations. If he wasn't busy with tidying the library, he could be seen running up and down the criss-crossing staircases, carrying armfuls of colourful paper lanterns to be hung on every spot imaginable; or he could be found in the kitchens, sharing useful Hobbit recipes (the Fell Winter had taught the Shirefolk how to cook a filling meal out of the scrapings), and one day he was even spotted coming back from outside, dragging a sled full of holly twigs and pine branches. The Dwarves had observed this particular quirk of their Consort with raised eyebrows but all Bilbo had to do was to say 'Yavanna' in a self-explanatory tone and they let him do as he pleased - only taking care when entering rooms because of the sudden prickly, needles-shedding addendum to every doorway.

The end of the year was just so busy, not just for Bilbo but for everyone, that there was no wonder when he stumbled into the newly refurbished royal quarters every day well past the evening hour, curled in the too big armchair in front of the fire and fell asleep there, pretending he hadn't woken when Thorin carried him to bed.

Bilbo's mind was recovering - his body, though, seemed to be taking the opposite course. His joints ached every morning, popping when he got out of bed, and the steeper staircases had him losing his breath quicker than before. Bilbo knew that it was his age finally catching up with him - and he was lucky at least to be only fifty-one, still a Hobbit in his prime, nimble and handsome enough. Well, handsome. The first time Bilbo spied the new wrinkles appearing on his face he spent the next two days avoiding any mirrors.

He also avoided any sort of intimacy with Thorin, perhaps by accident at first, but the deeper he sank into the tangled mess of guilt and self-imposed atonement, more purposefully as time went on. It was easy to blame his reserve on the weariness from the daily toiling. But the truth was that though being forgiven by everyone, Bilbo still couldn't quite forgive himself. Every time Thorin gave him a look that was clearly meant for him alone, Bilbo dropped his gaze demurely; every time Thorin ghosted a kiss over his forehead in the morning, Bilbo pretended to still be asleep. He still burned with shame from their last encounter in the armoury. When he, driven to madness, believed that he had to shield Thorin from the gold, when he wanted to prevent him from going into the Treasury, he had taken something that had been precious, pure and theirs only - their mutual desire - and used it for manipulation; doing everything to entice Thorin’s desire while he was literally gritting his teeth through it. Bilbo couldn't find a way around it, didn't know how to move on, didn't know where to start in picking up the threads of their love and trust. He was stuck.

Maybe a little push from the outside would help him - but Thorin, true to his unwaveringly noble character, didn’t press Bilbo one bit. Sometimes, Bilbo despaired. He couldn’t allow himself to reach out and take what he thought he didn’t deserve, what he’d lost the right to wanting, and it seemed that Thorin was determined to wait. Or perhaps, Bilbo thought, perhaps he didn’t even want Bilbo like that any more...

Of course, Thorin was not blind. In hindsight, Bilbo really should have thought of that.

One afternoon Bilbo found that all his meetings had been mysteriously rescheduled. The library was closed for what looked like entirely made-up reasons. The greenhouses were wintered, and just as Bilbo was trying to come up with anything to do with himself, he ran into Nori. The former thief had been  in a sparkling mood ever since he’d asked Bofur to marry him and the miner had finally said 'yes', and he mentioned to Bilbo casually that the bathhouse has been re-opened. So Bilbo, for the lack of better things to do, gave it a try. It was heavenly, just as he remembered it. Hot water infused with mineral salts, almond soap and scented oils - the mice and rats that lived in the mountain had no taste for beauty care and so this was the one commodity that Erebor had in abundance - and at the end of it Bilbo arrived at his quarters refreshed, relaxed, and feeling better than in ages.

His skin was still flushed and radiating heat so he wrapped himself in a quilt and settled down into his usual armchair, together with a cup of tea. He had barely taken the first sip when the door opened and Thorin strode in. In his arms he carried a harp.

Bilbo blinked in surprise. "Oh. I didn't know you played."

"It's not exactly something that comes up on a quest through the wilderness," Thorin agreed. "I haven't played in several years." The slight pause said what Bilbo didn't need to hear him say aloud:  _ ever since Smaug came _ . "But my teacher was a good one, and she kept saying that I had a good singing voice."

Bilbo smiled into his teacup. "More than. You should know your singing back in Bag End was one of the major reasons that turned my mind into joining you on the quest."

"Hopefully my skill has not grown too rusty." Thorin ran a palm across the gold-inlaid wooden arch of the harp. The movement over the honey-coloured wood was slow and protracted, fingers tracing the patterns with a touch that was well past reverent and edging into sensual, and Bilbo felt his heart quicken when he couldn't help but imagine that hand running over his own skin.

Clearing his throat - that had no business to be so dry on such a peaceful and indulgent afternoon - he said: "I'm sure you'll play marvellously."

Thorin was bent, dragging a chair closer to the fireplace, and he stopped to shoot him a look from under his freely flowing strands of hair. "I am not sure. It is certainly out of tune."

He sat down, spread his legs wide and tilted the body of the harp to rest against his inner thighs, leaning his body over it. Bilbo throat went abruptly even drier and he gulped down more tea than was healthier for him, scalding his tongue.

Thorin ghosted his open palm softly across the strings and then he plucked some, seemingly at random, with the barest force, with his head bent low to catch the tiny sounds. His eyes were closed and his face a picture of concentration, brows slightly drawn together, lips apart and shining, soft pleased sighs escaping them. Bilbo felt the flush spreading down his neck and hoped that Thorin wouldn't notice. He could always blame the heat from the fireplace, couldn't he?

"Yes, it has been neglected lately," Thorin said at normal volume and the clear sound of his voice made Bilbo nearly spill his tea. The almost-accident chased away a vague feeling that perhaps Thorin was not speaking about the harp - but now Bilbo was lost, entranced, watching Thorin's fingers skimming along the pegs. Just a tap here, a tiny tweak there, Thorin was keying the strings in imperceptible increments until Bilbo was keyed up as well, tense to the point of snapping. It was a delicious torture and Bilbo was going to break the cup by the force of his grip in the next moment–

"Would you care for a song, Bilbo?"

"Gladly," Bilbo croaked, proud of himself that he managed a single coherent word.

Thorin ran his hands over the strings in a couple of random chords and eventually he picked up a tune - a gentle one, with a plaintive lilt and a dip in the middle that sounded almost mysterious. The end of the phrase left a natural opening for the next stanza and Thorin repeated the melody a few times in various pitch and volume before he seemed satisfied enough with the familiarity of it. Then he began to sing.

 

_ I had dreamed of _

_ storm clouds brewing on the skies _

_ dark blue shadow _

_ the deep colour of your eyes _

 

Bilbo bit his lip. Thorin was serenading him, his deep voice like rich hot chocolate spilled on silk. Bilbo was sure his eyes must have been black by now, pupils blown wide with desire. He wondered how much Thorin could see in the firelight.

 

_ I had dreamed of _

_ wildfire spreading over peaks _

_ red fire burning _

_ the rich colour of your cheeks _

 

And it was true, Bilbo realised. He was burning, burning for the Dwarf in front of him who treated a musical instrument like he would treat a lover. Bilbo saw now that Thorin had been doing this on purpose and he didn't even care, he just  _ wanted _ .

 

_ I had dreamed of _

_ lightning striking from within _

_ blinding white flash _

_ of your soft and bare skin _

 

Bilbo suppressed a groan. His skin itched, starving for touch. He'd been punishing himself with separation and for what? He'd been punishing Thorin as well, and Thorin had done nothing to deserve it. With every pluck of Thorin's fingers on the strings, Bilbo felt as if he were tugging on the threads of his self-control, unravelling them one by one.

 

_ I had dreamed of _

_ roll of clouds like waves on shores _

_ like a blanket _

_ of my body over yours _

 

"Enough," Bilbo rasped out, untangled his body from the quilt and crossed the distance to Thorin in a couple of very determined strides. "Put the harp away, please."

Thorin's eyes sparkled. "What ever for?"

"Because I need to be in your lap, now," Bilbo said firmly, "and as lovely as the harp is, it stands in the way."

 

*

  
  


The afternoons in Rethe were still rather short. The almost evening hour was coloured metallic blue from the mirrors reflecting the royal shade of the sky twinkling with the first stars. The bluish hue coming through the large light wells in the ceiling of the King's office mingled with the mellow light of Bilbo's reading lamp, turning his hair into all shades of gold. Thorin was hiding his face behind the newest missive from the Iron Hills and watched the play of light and shadow as Bilbo was skimming through a long list, with many items crossed out and others scribbled down instead, alternating between sips on his rapidly cooling tea and meditative nibbles on the wood end of his pencil.

"When is the wedding scheduled for, again?"

"The first of Astron," Thorin replied dutifully.

Bilbo huffed and shook his head in amusement. Thorin watched, entranced, how his locks sparkled and settled again.

"Well, that certainly took long enough," Bilbo observed.

"That is entirely Dori's fault. With him, etiquette comes first."

They both winced and nodded when they simultaneously recalled the squabble that broke out just after Yule. Dori had been absolutely adamant that his brother may only wed his sweetheart after he finished a proper courtship - which had proved to be a bit of a challenge since Nori was used to stealing things rather than crafting them.

Bilbo wrote another item down, frowned at it and crossed it out again.

"There's a betting pool on whether Dori will cry during the ceremony, want to place a bet?" he asked nonchalantly.

"He will hardly be the only brother weeping," Thorin noted. "Bombur always weeps at weddings - and that is nothing compared with the veritable river of tears he cries on naming days. You would think that he sired every pebble born in the Mountain from the way he just melts when he sees one."

Bilbo was giggling. "I would bet that even the mighty and fearsome Thorin Oakenshield shed a tear or two when presented with his nephews and no one is going to convince me otherwise!"

Thorin laughed too, not denying anything. For a while, they fell again into the comfortable, efficient silence that Thorin so cherished - working alongside each other, complementing each other, even sometimes finishing each other's thoughts. Bilbo put the list aside and pulled the pile of correspondence in front of him, sorting through it and singling out the letters written in Westron. Thorin still had to handle everything that came in written in Khuzdul but he was more than happy to leave dealing with Men and Elves to Bilbo.

Shuffling through the pile, Bilbo picked up one letter with a pleased sound. Thorin looked up and recognised the envelope as one that was commonly sold in Bree. The address, though, was written in Khuzdul, which meant the letter inside was probably from Ered Luin. Bilbo handed it to him and Thorin tore into it at once.

"Ah - the first caravan from Ered Luin is due in Lithe. They are now only waiting for when the passes will be cleared from snow."

Bilbo hummed. "Will Dís be arriving with them?"

Thorin shook his head. "Sadly, no. She has to organise the following caravans as well and establish a working vicegerency over those Dwarves who would choose to remain in Ered Luin. She will arrive with the last one, perhaps in three years' time. Hopefully Kíli would be tameable enough for travel by then."

Bilbo pursed his mouth and sighed. "And you are absolutely certain she would kill us both if we were to be wed–"

"–before she arrives to see it? Absolutely."

"So all remains for me is to go on living in sin, as you have it."

Thorin lifted his eyebrows, not missing the fond joking undertone and taking the opportunity to tease his Hobbit a little.

"You do realise that we are technically married after the custom of Dwarves."

Bilbo pouted exaggeratedly. "I find I miss the custom of Hobbits, technically-husband mine. Much more reasonable - a lot more flowers and a lot less blood involved. Very pleasant."

"I shall bring you flowers every day if that makes you happy, husband mine."

"You utter sap," Bilbo grumbled but he was smiling into the pile of letters, fiddling with the golden coin-bead in his hair. He probably wasn't aware what the sight of him twirling the braid and playing with the bead was doing to Thorin - so the King decided to sit back and enjoy the show while it lasted.

It didn't last for long. After only a while, Bilbo lifted his head and fixed his eyes somewhere into a distance, and his face gradually shifted from distracted, over to pensive, and into anxious.

"What is on your mind,  _ markhê _ ?"

"This ceremony," Bilbo began tentatively. "When we'll have it - I mean, are there any - um, you know, do the Dwarves exchange the, the wedding bands? Like Men do?"

Of course not, what a ridiculous custom, Thorin wanted to say quickly and easily but then he noticed - perhaps for the first time - the lack of any adornments on Bilbo's fingers. And yet it wasn't as if Bilbo was opposed to jewellery. He wore proudly the golden bead Thorin gave him, and his curls were hiding a red gold cuff on his ear that complimented his hair colour just wonderfully and Thorin adored the way Bilbo squirmed when he played with it in bed. There was also a pair of delicate anklets chiming lightly on his bare feet, a special gift from Thorin that started quite the trend among Dwarves who would now visit the public bathhouse sporting beautifully crafted anklets - as that place was the only one they would visit bare-footed, of course. Bilbo did not shy from golden buttons on his waistcoat, or from a pearl neckerchief pin - but he never wore rings.

"Wedding bands have no part in Dwarven ceremony," Thorin soothed him. "We exchange marriage beads, and I might give you a ceremonial diadem to officially mark your status, but no rings - unless Hobbit custom requires it?"

"Pah, nothing as ridiculous among Hobbits, too!" Bilbo was visibly relieved and he wasn't looking at Thorin - but the King could still see the colour of shame rising in his cheeks. "Please remember that I am not adverse to a public token that we belong to each other - far from it - but I think I would rather have your sigil tattooed on my forehead than wear a ring."

"It still hurts, doesn't it." It wasn't a question and Thorin did not expect a reply. Bilbo rose and walked over to the far wall, facing a bright-coloured tapestry featuring a map of Middle-Earth. He kept his hand clasped behind his back when he spoke, still with his back to the room.

"Sometimes I still miss it. I don't want it back, exactly - but sometimes it comes as a surprise that I no longer have it. I reach into my pocket and startle that I must have misplaced it somewhere... I thought I would be rid of this, but the habit lingers."

Thorin got up too and walked to stand close behind Bilbo. He knew by now how his near presence, intimidating and looming to some, worked marvels at steadying Bilbo's nerves.

"That is understandable, Bilbo. You carried it for years. It will take years for the memory to fade. This is not anything to be ashamed of."

"But it is," Bilbo opposed. "I brought this upon myself, can't blame this mess on anyone but stupid old me."

"The finding of that cursed ring was not your fault."

Bilbo traced the woven outline of Misty Mountains on the map with his finger. "The finding perhaps not... but the keeping, yes. That was my fault. I might have found it by accident but even though on some level I knew it wasn't any good, I still chose to keep it. Day after day I was choosing to keep it, I was lying to everyone so I could keep it - even to you, when you asked me about Gollum, about all that, I lied to your face. The ring was evil, yes, but I wasn't good either. How can you still want to marry someone so weak..."

Thorin knew by now that these dark moods would come and go like a spring rain, darkening the sky and dampening the earth but leaving the air cleaner, fresher afterwards. He learned to wait out the worst and then offer comfort.

"Many could be faulted for their weakness when faced with such temptation... but very few could ever be admired for being as strong as you. Anyone would be weak enough to pick up the ring. You were strong enough to let go of it."

Bilbo turned to lean into his arms and sought out a kiss, opening under Thorin like a familiar and beloved book and tasting of their happiness. The gentle slide of lips quickly grew heated, but then they were alone in Thorin's office and the guards had long ago learned to knock (they had learned it the hard way, after one memorable incident with a guard bursting into the private kitchen of their shared quarters where Thorin was distracting Bilbo from making dinner). Thorin gazed down at the flushed cheeks and bright eyes of his lover and wondered how he could ever have thought him unattractive, a bane of his existence, a curse from the Valar. Bilbo was deceptively strong for his frame, soft in all the right places, and his face bore more lines now than when they embarked on the quest - but the laugh lines and crow feet suited him, they made his mobile face even more expressive. He had been slowly putting on weight throughout the winter and now when Thorin slid his palms down, he was pleased with the plush handful he got when he squeezed his bum. There was a mark just under his palm, underneath all those prim and proper clothes, a mark that Thorin had sucked there just that morning, and it made him warm just to think of it, of a visible mark on Bilbo' skin where no one else could see. It took his mind down rather interesting paths…

"Bilbo? About that tattoo you said you would be willing to get..."

"Oh..! I deny every word!" Bilbo scrambled out of his grasp and attempted to straighten his collar, but from the speculative spark in his eyes Thorin knew he had hit on a hidden vein of gold.

"Let me finish that pile of post and then we can take this particular discussion somewhere private... and more comfortable."

Thorin laughed and laughed, but let him. The amount of post was indeed impressive – the first load of mail that came over the mountains since the worst of the snow storms had passed. There was one particular envelope in the Westron pile that Bilbo kept repeatedly shuffling to the bottom, obviously saving it for the last. Thorin wondered what news was inside. It came from the Shire - probably neighbour gossip. Perhaps a wedding announcement…

 

*

 

Years had passed and Erebor flourished. Bilbo now had more friends and family than he ever dared to hope for in those years he spent alone in the Shire, though the Dwarves certainly had a way to get on his nerves sometimes. He had hoped for a kindred soul when young Frodo - after the unfortunate demise of his parents - had decided he would rather go to live in Erebor with Bilbo than in the Brandy Hall with his cousins. But alas - Bilbo had not considered the abysmal influence that Dís' sons would have on the once so well-mannered faunt. It didn't take long and little Frodo could wield his wooden sword better than a dessert fork, and that was entirely un-Hobbitish, if you asked Bilbo!

Thus little Frodo grew up as the adopted son of Bilbo Baggins and Thorin Oakenshield, and when the time came and a summon for a council in Rivendell had been sent out, freshly of age Frodo broked no argument and joined in the delegation, eager to see once again all the places Bilbo had described in his book.

It took him nearly two years to come back to Erebor, from an adventure of his own and so much different than his uncle's. Much had changed on the map of the world, and Frodo, too, was now not the same. But the Enemy had been defeated, the Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor restored, and many unlikely friendships had blossomed in the wake of this extraordinary quest.

  
As for Hobbits, they were certain in one thing. All sorts of extraordinary things have always happened to the children of the soulmark. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song that inspired Thorin's song is in Czech called 'Zdálo sa ně zdálo' and you can listen to it [ here ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clUP3pcIKq4) (you won't be able to understand the lyrics but the melody, instrumentation and singing voice are beautiful on themselves)

**Author's Note:**

> Well then, I hope you enjoyed my experiment to see if I could pull off a novel-length story. It's the last I've written for Bagginshield fandom. It's been good but I've moved on. 
> 
> This work is dedicated to that few people who would have been sad if I never finished it.
> 
> When I first started posting it back in October, I thought that a regular weekly updates and some positivity I would get out of it would be a great help in coping with my seasonal affective disorder, which manifests itself with depression starting in October and lasting well after Christmas. For a while, it worked. But half-way through the hit count practically stopped, the fic wasn't getting any kudos, and the updates barely stirred people's interest anymore. I felt it like a failure and that's not a good feeling to have when you're depressed and thinking about if the building where you live is high enough for the jump to kill you. 
> 
> And when I tried to explain to people what their comments meant to me, I was disappointed to get a couple of very negative reactions - such as people calling my asking for comments offensive and telling me that if I was going to ask that they would rather read 'the ton of fanwork that's out there for free' (!). I decided to take a break, to retreat from the fandom and away from things that weren't helping my condition. I worked on other projects. Explored other fandoms. And naturally, as a result, I drifted out of Bagginshield. I lost all interest in the story and eventually any enjoyment of the pairing as well. 
> 
> But luckilly (for you) I had the story carefully outlined from the start so it was only a matter of dilligence to finish it. I decided that though the reception of this story was a disappointment for me overall, there were a couple of very nice people along the way and it would be unfair to deprive them just because their peers have been douchebags. Also, it would be a shameful waste of time and skills of my beta readers who put a lot of work in this. 
> 
> To those who want to follow me in my other fandoms, see you there. We have cookies.


End file.
